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It was another blazing hot day in the city of Lys. The sun glared down on the broad, empty courtyards and shone off the brass tiles that topped the towers. Even the children splashing down at the seashore and the merchants at market seemed listless today.
And in a room in a manse high above the sea, Daenora Targaryen dreamed.
As usual, her dreams were strange and tangled, but she drifted through them without ever really letting any of them touch her. She dreamt that she was in a place of ice and snow, watching a red-haired girl go trampling across a white field with her bow slung at her back, arguing with a sullen-looking boy who followed just a few paces behind.
She could not make out what exactly they were saying, but that didn't matter. Daenora was not ever interested in the people in her dreams, but only the strange faraway places through which they moved. The chill of this place was so pervasive it seemed to seep through her flesh, through her bones, until even the ends of her hair were deliciously cold.
But when she woke up, she found that she was lying in a pool of sweat. Her linen sheets stank of it, and it turned her stomach.
It was the heart of summer, and she was seven moons gone with child.
"Help me up," she croaked. "I want a bath."
Her handmaiden Ilara helped Daenora sit up on the bed, adjusting the pillows to cushion her sore back. "I will be back with a good hot bath now, princess," she said in her soft little voice that Daenora had always found so soothing.
She was not really soothed now. "I want a cold bath," said Daenora peevishly. "I think I'm melting away."
"As you wish, princess."
Once she left, Daenora let out the groan she'd been working so hard to stifle. It seemed to her that everything these days was miserable - her back and hips ached, her hands and feet were swollen, and she had trouble staying asleep. And the child within her kicked and fidgeted relentlessly. It was like she had eaten some live creature which was now constantly trying to claw its way out.
Well, Daenora wished it would come out too. It seemed impossible to her how anxious she had been about childbirth when she first found out she was with child. Her husband had certainly been no help either. "My mother bore six babes," he'd said. "And she never had any trouble."
How would you know? she'd wanted to snap. The only time you were there to see it was when you were being born!
But it did not do to talk back to Aerion Targaryen, Prince of Dragonstone and the heir to the Iron Throne.
Ilara was back now, accompanied by a passel of servants wielding buckets of acceptably lukewarm water. One by one they poured the water out into her great marble bathtub, bowed, and retreated. It was rather a waste of manpower, but Aerion insisted on keeping more servants than they needed, and they all needed to be kept occupied one way or another. Besides, it did mean Daenora could have her bath faster.
She sat patiently as Ilara pinned her hair up, and then her other handmaiden Talena helped her stand. Between the two servants, she was stripped of her nightgown in moments, and then they helped her step into the water and sit back. The cool marble side of the bathtub felt wonderful against her aching back. She sighed happily.
As Ilara scrubbed her arms and Talena massaged her shoulders, Daenora shut her eyes and let the sound of their voices drift around her. Both of them had been born and raised in Lys, so while they spoke Common fluently it was with a strong accent. She didn't mind, though, because she liked the fluid cadence it lent their words, sometimes almost sing-song.
And she liked that they both had the coloring of Old Valyria. Daenora might have her mother's sky blue Arryn eyes, but her pale hair, tinted more silver than gold, plainly showed her Targaryen lineage. Back in the Seven Kingdoms, she was obviously royalty; here in Lys, she could be anyone at all.
That was why she hadn't been upset about accompanying Aerion on yet another exile across the Narrow Sea. Sometimes she wondered if it would be so bad to be completely disinherited like Uncle Maekor was constantly threatening Aerion with, except that it would make him very unhappy - and Aerion was difficult enough to live with at the best of times.
As though she knew where Daenora's thoughts were going, Talena said, "Princess, your husband wishes for you to join him for tea in his solar."
"Does he?" muttered Daenora. "Well, if my lord commands."
Mostly she was surprised that he was home to be dining with her. These past few weeks, he'd been out of the house from nearly daybreak til the middle of the night, and what he was doing or what he was with, Daenora did not know, except that it was probably not something she particularly wanted to know. The only times she had seen him was when she woke up to see him standing over her, staring down at her swollen belly.
It was certainly a strange sight, she would admit, especially on her small frame - bulging out and striped like a watermelon - but she knew he was not looking at her skin but trying to see through it, as though he could communicate with the child within. He probably thought so, anyway. He would stroke her belly as one does a cat, and the baby would kick in response. He never said a word to Daenora herself, but that suited her just fine.
Nervously, she wondered if he had heard something about her that upset him.
But she had been so quiet! The heat and the child had been making her feel so awful that she had gone nowhere and seen no one. If she was not laying down in the courtyard reading a book, then she was dozing up in her room. Her days were long and empty, but she had long tired of excitement.
Now she could hardly sit still as Talena brushed out her hair and Ilara bedecked her in jewelry. She looped a strand of milky pink pearls round Daenora's throat, pinned her hair back on each side with golden combs, pushed bangles onto her wrists, and stuck a ruby thumb ring onto her index finger, since her fingers were too swollen nowadays to fit any of her others. It was irritating, because despite her gauzy pink dress, the jewelry made her feel all weighed down. Aerion insisted that as a future queen, she must always dress her station, and so she did - when she was going to see him, that was.
"He is in a good mood today, princess," Ilara murmured reassuringly in her ear as she combed back a few rebellious strands of hair out of her face. "And Cook has made your favorite lemon cakes."
Daenora smiled. If Aerion started acting especially strange, she could just stuff her face with the lemon cakes to distract herself.
It was a big manse they lived in, and they were the only two people who lived above-stairs in it. Aerion always insisted that Daenora's chambers be adjoining to his, though, so she did not have far to walk. Out the door, down a small flight of stairs and up a covered walkway, and she was outside his door. She could hear his laugh booming through the door, which made her anxious. Sometimes it was bad if he was in too good a mood.
"There you are, Daenora!" he called, as soon as she stepped in through the door. He had clearly been there for a while, judging by the number of empty plates strewn over the table before him. He was in another one of his phases in which he insisted on eating nothing but nearly raw meat, and the congealed fluids left behind on the plates made her stomach turn.
Leaning on Ilara's arm for support, she performed a shallow curtsey. "How are you, my lord?" she inquired.
"Well," he replied. "And how is my heir?"
Aerion was convinced the baby was a boy, though contrary to her expectations, it turned out he wouldn't mind a daughter. "My son will need someone to marry," he'd said. Since Daenora knew how worried he himself had been about securing himself a Targaryen bride before she was born, she believed him.
"He's quite well," she said. "Kicking and keeping his mother up at all hours of the night, but the midwife says that it means he's strong."
"Of course he's strong. He's my son. Where are your slippers?"
Daenora, surprised, looked down at her bare feet, though she had to crane her neck a little to see past her stomach. "It's so hot," she said, "and my feet have spread like unleavened bread. It's much more comfortable."
"Don't talk about baking bread like some kind of servant!" he snapped. Once she would have flinched, but she had gotten used to his abrupt changes in mood in the four years they had been wed. "Tell your woman to go away. Come here."
She nodded at Ilara, who fled through the door with almost indecent haste. Then Daenora approached her husband.
Sometimes she wondered if it was better or worse that Aerion was so beautiful. On some nights when she lay beside him in bed, she looked at him so much she couldn't sleep. His hair, curly and silver-gold like gilt or molten starlight, his moon-pale skin, the imperious lines of his sharp cheekbones and fine straight nose. His mouth, slack in sleep, would ease into a gentle smile, and she could not help but want to kiss and kiss it. When she was little, before she knew any better, she had even been excited to learn that one day she would be his wife.
It was only later, when her mother decided she was old enough to need to understand his true nature, that Daenora had realized the kind of person Aerion was.
When she reached him, he pushed his chair back and hauled her down on his lap. "You walk so slow you might as well be crawling," he complained. "You took so long to come to me. What were you doing?"
"Bathing," answered Daenora. Since her other choice was to look at the bloody scraps of his meal, it was an easy choice to twist round in his arms so that she was facing him. She leaned back a little, pressing against the edge of the table for support. "It's been so hot -"
"Heat does not bother a dragon," said Aerion. "It's your weak Arryn blood, I'm afraid."
There were flecks of blood visible on his lips and teeth when he spoke, and his breath smelled of iron.
Better I inherited my mother's 'weak Arryn blood' than my father's madness, she thought. But all she let show on her face was a sheepish smile.
"Really, my lord, tell me how you are. I've hardly seen you these last few days!"
Aerion nuzzled her hair. "Did you miss me, wife?"
Daenora often wondered if he loved her. He had been waiting for her so long, after all.
He had been seventeen when she was born on the heels of the disastrous Ashford tourney, so he'd been long menaced by the threat of marrying some Andal girl. And even then, both their uncle the king and his father had dangled her out of his reach as an incentive to make him behave better. Later on, it was only after his heroism in the Third Blackfyre Rebellion that King Aerys had consented to the betrothal, and then after his death, King Maekar had strung Aerion along for the actual wedding until Daenora was eighteen.
Her goodsister Daella had commented that Aerion had waited more patiently for Daenora than he had ever been made to wait, which implied that he had more self-control than anyone believed of him.
Daenora herself was only glad that King Maekar and his late wife Dyanna Dayne had had a visibly loving marriage, because there were much worse examples for Aerion to ape.
On the other hand, it did mean he demanded copious amounts of attention in return. And unlike him, she did not have the luxury of attending to him only when the mood took her. So she pressed herself into him and mumbled, "Perhaps I did. It's very quiet when you're away. What had you so busy?"
He lifted a hank of her hair to his lips and kissed it. Daenora hoped he hadn't gotten it stained with blood; she had so much hair it took her handmaidens absolutely ages to wash and dry it. When he went to kiss it again, she offered her cheek as an alternative, which he kindly accepted.
"I have been away, dealing with traitors. How come you smell so good, wife?"
"Talena's been buying me new scented oils at market. From Naath, I think she said. What traitors?"
She worked to stay placid, as placid as her mother always was. Traitors was unfortunately a very vague descriptor when it came from Aerion. It was equally likely that he had come across a Blackfyre pretender, a Westerosi merchant complaining about King Maekor's tax policy, or some loose-lipped Lyseni whore making an ill-timed joke. The trouble is that her husband would respond to all of these instances exactly the same - with fire and blood.
"I have heard rumors," said Aerion, "of dragons' eggs."
Daenora went perfectly still. "Dragon eggs," she echoed. "Where? How?"
Though the family no longer talked about it openly, there were still a few unhatched dragon eggs in their possession, kept in the king's possession at the Red Keep. All of Daeron the Good's grandchildren had a chance at a cradle egg, even Daenora, though it had been taken away from her again when she was too young to remember when it showed no signs of life. There could be no dragon eggs in Essos, because they were all accounted for. All, except for -
"Elissa Farman's eggs! Are they really -"
And then she let out a little shriek, because Aerion had stopped stroking her hair to give her a hard pinch in the side.
"That traitor bitch, you mean," he corrected.
He had pulled and twisted at her flesh so hard, Daenora knew it would surely leave a bruise. Irritated, she rubbed at her side to try and soothe it. And to tamp down her anger, she imagined what her mother would do to Aerion if she came across him hurting Daenora again.
Her father Rhaegal had died when Daenora was only five, choking on a lamprey pie. She only had a few faint memories of him - mostly riding on his shoulders and pulling on his dark hair, and one time she'd sat by his feet cracking pistachio nuts for him to eat. But she remembered how patient and gentle her mother had been with him, and how much the rest of her family had pitied her and appreciated her.
Even after Rhaegal died, and then the twins not long after, Alys Arryn had stayed on at the Red Keep, helping keep the palace running while King Aerys moldered among his books and Queen Aelinor prayed prostrate in the Great Sept for a babe she would never have.
But the one time Daenora had seen her lose her temper, she had lost it spectacularly.
Soon after their marriage, she had seen Aerion strike Daenora - what for, Daenora could no longer remember. It had been terrifying, the shade of red her mother’s face turned. She had torn Aerion off Daenora by his long curls, and he had been so astonished he actually fell sprawling to the floor.
"Never -" she'd roared, "Never lay your hands on my daughter again, Prince Aerion, or you will find yourself short that hand!" And then she'd given him a couple hard kicks in the stomach for good measure.
Later that evening, while tending to the fresh bruise forming across Daenora's face, she advised, "You must understand that Targaryen males are closer to beast than man. Your husband in particular is like a rapid dog. You shall have to train him up, Daenora."
Of course, unlike her tall, strong mother, Daenora was not powerful enough to beat Aerion. Nor did she really relish the prospect of having to teach him to cower before her; she did not really think it would suit him. But there was more than one way to tame a feral dog.
Now she clutched at her stomach. "Aerion - it hurts! The babe's shifting around so much -" She thought of the day before her sister Aelora died, the misery and shame on her beautiful face. Daenora’s eyes filled with tears.
Aerion, panicking, drew her further onto his lap and stuck his hand under the gauzy fabric of her dress, feeling around for her stomach. "Hurts how? Is the babe coming?"
“No, the babe’s not coming! I feel like I've swallowed a live snake," Daenora complained. "Your son's swimming around in there and kicking me to pieces." Wiping the tears from her eyes, she added, "I can't do this again, I can't! And I want my mother- "
"Then we'll bring your mother over," he soothed. "We'll send for her straight away. Please don't cry, Daenora. It'll upset the babe."
"Nothing will hurt that babe," she groused. "I swear, he's stronger than I am. When he comes, he's going to rip me to shreds. I just know it!"
At this announcement, Aerion moved onto rubbing her back and shoulders. "No, no, wife. You're a strong girl. You're going to be perfectly well, and you are going to give me a beautiful son. It's my fault - it was me who woke the babe. I'm sorry I pinched you. Please stop crying."
It still amused her, how vulnerable he was to her tears. Maybe it was because he'd grown up with sisters, or maybe it was because she was so much younger than him, but all Daenora had to do nowadays was to produce a few tears, and her husband fell all over himself trying to get it to stop. And she had long ago learned the trick of crying on command.
She had another hard sniff before she stopped her weeping though. "I'm sorry. Everything makes me cry these days! The midwife says that's just what happens when one's with child, though."
Daenora gave him a peck on the lips, to let him know there were no hard feelings. Then she turned toward the table and scanned it hungrily. Ilara had mentioned lemon cakes, and she meant to have some.
Her goodsister Betha, Prince Aegon's wife, had often written her about the bizarre cravings she experienced during her own pregnancies, but for Daenora, her sweet tooth had intensified exponentially. She had long ago resigned herself to the fact that even after the babe came, she was never going to fit in her old gowns again.
Aerion, reaching forward, pulled the platter of lemon cakes towards her, clearing aside some of the dirty ones to make space. With another kiss, this one of thanks, Daenora selected the largest of the cakes and began to eat.
Through a half-full mouth, she said, “Tell me about the dragon eggs. Could they be the ones that the - ahem- ‘traitor bitch’ stole from Princess Rhaena? Do you think you could bring them back for our baby? Just imagine -“
And she did briefly imagine the terrible, awful prospect of Aerion, impulsive, violent Aerion, with a dragon at his command.
She swallowed her bite, slapped lightly at his shoulder, and insisted, “Tell me!”
“They’re just rumors now,” he explained. “But they’re talking about three dragon eggs, and that’s how many the bitch sailed off with. Of course, the merchant tried to shut his mouth the moment he heard I was the one interested. But I have ways to make him talk.”
Daenora finished her lemon cake, but she was empty-handed for just a moment, as Aerion immediately handed her another.
“Do you think he’s telling the truth? Those Essosi will say anything for coin. Remember when Lord Baratheon tried to buy that dragon egg from that Myrish trader, and it turned out to be a stone?" Aerion had gone about muttering darkly under his breath for the length of the time he believed Lord Baratheon had actually got his hands on a dragon egg, so it had been a great relief to Daenora when it turned out that he had merely been swindled.
Aerion's fingers dug tight into her thigh. "I think," he said slowly, "that a dragon like myself would know the difference between a child and a painted rock."
She chewed harder, more to delay her response than anything else. She was drifting into dangerous waters.
He had always had that odd quirk of talking about dragons as though they were more than Targaryen mounts, as though they were kinsfolk. It had been the one of the first things Daenora had learned about him as a child, and had rode around on his shoulders pretending that he was her dragon. For a long time she had thought it was just some game, and later on, a fantasy. But in the past year or so, he had become distressingly vague about the distinctions between man and beast.
Sometimes she wondered if he truly thought he was a dragon beneath his human skin. Sometimes she wondered if he thought he might one day be able to shed that human skin and take on his true form.
Why had her family agreed to give her to him? Aerion was mad, and Daenora had madness in her blood. Even the twins, who had seemed so ordinary for so long, had succumbed to it in the end. What kind of child would she bear Aerion?
"Some wine?" asked Aerion, solicitous.
"Yes, please." The Dornish red was characteristically sour, but it did a good job of clearing the foul taste from her mouth. She did not reach for another lemon cake once she'd finished drinking. She was not very hungry anymore.
Instead, Daenora wriggled around again to face him. Once again she reminded herself that it could be much worse. He could have been ugly on top of everything else. Instead, he was one of the beautiful people she knew. He even wore beautiful clothes!
Much cheered, she said, "I was only teasing. I know that if they really are dragon eggs, you'll be the one to track them down." Indeed, the hunt could serve as a kind of enrichment activity for him! Aerion never caused as much trouble as he did when he was bored.
He tried his level best to keep looking annoyed, but Daenora could plainly see the way his mouth curled up on the edges. "Imagine if they really are the eggs stolen from Rhaena. Eggs from Dreamfyre's clutch!"
Daenora imagined, and she smiled too. Dreamfyre had been a beautiful dragon, long and sleek, with pale blue scales and silver crests and horns. She had known only two riders, Princess Rhaena and Princess Helaena. She had been slain in the Storming of the Dragonpit, but not before she slew hundreds of her attackers. Her offspring too must be terrible and lovely.
"And if there's three eggs," she said, "and if they all hatch - that's a dragon for our son, and one for our daughter, and one for you."
Her words set his face alight with that peculiar gladness she saw only rarely - sometimes as he laid stretched out before the hearth-fire on a dark winter's evening, sometimes when they were in bed together, but always when he spoke of dragons. "Wouldn't you want a dragon of your own?"
She stroked the side of Aerion's face. "I don't mind. I'll just ride with you, if you let me."
He leaned close to her then, and despite herself, Daenora's heart gave a little flutter. While the pregnancy had been giving her terrible heartburn, she could not blame it on that this time. The brush of his breath made her skin shivered deliciously over her bones.
“What a kind wife you are to me."
"Well," she said lightly, fighting for composure. "You did wait for me for such a long time. It wouldn't be fair of me not to reward you for -"
He swallowed the rest of her sentence in a deep kiss, slicking his tongue against hers, fisting his hands in her hair. Just don't rip my dress! was her last coherent thought.
Alas, the dress was indeed ripped, which was sad because it was one Daenora liked. Additionally, lemon cakes and silver platters were sent flying to the floor, which would be annoying for the servants to clean up. On the other hand, their tryst had the benefits of making Aerion very affectionate and shutting up Daenora's overactive thoughts, which she appreciated.
For a little while she just stayed in his lap, her flushed face pressed against his shoulder and her eyes closed. Her limbs were full of pleasant tingles, though her thighs were rather sore. Aerion's own head was flung back over of the back of the chair, and he was breathing heavily. He went on stroking her hair.
"I think I need another bath," Daenora complained.
Aerion let out a little huff of a laugh. "What you need is to be put to bed. Have I worn you out, wife?"
"A nap does sound nice..." she mused. And it was true she always felt drowsy after they made love.
The walk wasn't far at all, but Aerion still insisted on carrying her cradled in his arms. Daenora didn't really mind. Her dress was all torn down the front anyway, and her feet hurt. Back down the covered walkway they went, and she watched the treetops swaying in the warm summer wind. Up the stairs into her room, which was dark and cool. The servants had drained the bathtub while she was with Aerion, she noticed.
Then he laid her down in her bed. She stuck an imperious hand out to him and demanded, "Take off my jewelry."
Up went Aerion's eyebrows, but he did not protest. As he bent over her to take off her ring, her bangles, her necklace, her hair combs, Daenora went on studying him. His hair was untidy - you could almost see the imprints of her fingers from where she'd pulled on it. There was still a hint of a flush high on his cheeks, and she thought he looked very pretty.
It was sad, because it would have made him very happy, but she did not trust him with a dragon. He would have half of Westeros on fire by lunchtime, and would harry smallfolk and nobility alike most dreadfully. The Silent Sisters would have their hands full with managing all the corpses. Villages from the Wall to Dorne would ring from morning to night with lamentations for their dead.
It seemed like a waste of a dragon, really. If Daenora had a dragon - well, Westeros might never see her again, for she'd fly off to Essos. She'd fly over proud Volantis's great black walls and through the titan's legs in Braavos. She'd fly over the Dothrakis' great grass sea and the crumbled towers of old Sarnor. She'd see the butterflies of Naath and the zorses of the plains of Jogos Nhai. And then she'd go further and further, over vast, mysterious Yi Ti, all the way to the island of Leng in the Jade Sea - maybe all the way to Asshai by the Sea.
She'd carry her child in a basket strapped over the dragon's side, and tell him stories about every place that darted by below. She'd visit all the strange far-off places she'd seen in her dreams, and see if they existed in the waking world.
And if Aerion asked nicely, she'd take him along too.
"You know I love you, yes?" she asked, almost idly.
The tips of Aerion's ears went scarlet. "Well - yes," he admitted.
Daenora did find it odd how fond of him she'd grown, but in another sense it was not surprising at all. He was her cousin, her husband, the father of her unborn child. He was the only lover she had ever had and would ever know. And he was so terribly godsdamned beautiful.
"Come here," she demanded. He stooped down, and she collected a kiss from his lips. Then she waved him away. "Come back for dinner. It's boring to eat without you."
"But the eggs -"
"Find the eggs tomorrow," Daenora insisted. "Dinner tonight. Please, Aerion?"
He sighed, but nodded all the same. As a reward, she smiled up at him all the while he took off her torn dress and tucked her under the covers. And before he left, she caught his hand in hers and kissed it.
After he was gone, sleep tugged at her eyelids. Even the babe was still in her belly, as though he had fallen asleep too. Daenora could have dropped off right away, but there was one thing she had to do first.
For a few minutes she lay there, eyes determinedly open and ears alert, listening for footsteps out in the hall.
Once she was sure Aerion was gone for good, she sat up again, tarrying only long enough to rub the ache in her side from where he'd pinched her. Then, not bothering with getting dressed again, she went over to her writing desk and sat down. Searching for a fresh piece of parchment was only a moment's work. Then, quill in hand, she bent her head and began to write.
Dear Uncle Maekor,
I believe it will be of interest to you that my husband thinks he is on the track of rumored dragon eggs here in Lys...