Rising Shadows Marring Light

Chapter 1

Once, the pain had been bothering him only when he had been long seated or standing without a rest. Or when weather changed. For a good number of years, though, it had been plaguing him almost daily, waiting to invade his life as soon as he lowered his guard – and Daeron couldn't keep his guard and serve his body when he had a kingdom to rule. Seven of them! As a result, attending the evening feast was ever so often like a prolonged torture that he could barely wait to be over so they could retire and he could lie down and let Mariah rub his back, filling their chamber with the fragrance of pain-numbing oils. And after Daemon's rebellion had been put down, his load seemed to have increased. Still, there was the last day of the week when there were no councils, no work for anyone, him included. He spent those mornings in bed, too weary to wish to rise, happy to be with Mariah without any imminent tasks ahead of him, and sometimes he woke up even earlier than usual, just to savour this day of rest longer and listen to her breathe. But today, she had woken up almost as early as him, reaching for him almost absent-mindedly. That had become a habit for them in the morning, her hand on his back, stroking ever so slightly, as if she could straighten it.

Her silence went on for so long that he would have turned to her to make sure that she hadn't gone back to sleep, were it not for the hand stroking small circles across his back, the way that soothed the pain before it truly started.

"What's wrong?" he finally asked, took his glass from the coffer at his side of the bed and handed it to her. At night, Mariah often burned with thirst and he knew that her own glass and ewer would be empty by now. She took a few small sips.

"There was another one," she said.

Daeron didn't need to ask what she was talking about. He reached out and drew her closer. There were still so many women seeking her out – women widowed in the rebellion and terrified that the Iron Throne would deprive them of their husbands' property, as was Daeron's right to impose as a punishment for treason, women who came to beg for mercy, to beg Mariah to plead with Daeron not to take their children as hostages, and those who were most deserving of pity – those whose husbands and sons were still alive but had fled with Aegor, leaving them on whatever fate the victors chose them. But there was only one kind of woman that could get Mariah this upset. The women who tried to appeal to her by arriving with their small children in tow or in their arms…

"Lady Peake," she said.

"Out of question," Daeron said without thinking twice. Gormon Peake would give two hostages in King's Landing. Daeron was well aware about his part in the conspiracy aiming to steal the throne for Daemon.

"That's what I told her," Mariah replied. She had never chosen to hide behind his authority, promise things that she wouldn't do. "And still, she upset me."

As much as Daeron pitied the women coming to her, this kind of ploy left him devoid of compassion, for it saddened her, brought her back twenty and odd years ago. No one had had pity on her as his father had attacked Dorne as she had been growing great with child. Many of thise who now came to beg had gleefully shared in the predictions that the Dornish princess would give birth to a deformed monster. She had been so lonely, so isolated.

"You didn't promise her anything, though?" Daeron asked, quite needlessly.

"Of course I didn't," Mariah said immediately and paused. "I couldn't help but think how close it was. It could have been Jena in her place. It could have been Dyanna."

They went silent. They both knew that their gooddaughters would not have received any mercy, their children murdered long before they even had a chance to plead. Even Daenerys' children… That's about the extent of love Daemon claimed to have for her, Daeron thought cynically and his mind immediately rushed to another pressing concern. The Princess of Dragonstone was with child again and given her many miscarriages, there was an equal chance of a healthy birth or another loss. Matarys was not even a year old and Daeron hoped fervently that the curse of such heartbreak had finally been lifted from Jena and Baelor. And the realm. But he didn't know.

There was a sudden smile on Mariah's face but it was not him that she was smiling at. She was smiling at some thought of hers, her eyes soft and wistful. "What?" he asked.

She looked at him. "Dyanna is with child," she said.

Daeron's first reaction was joy. Joy and relief. He loved his grandsons as much as his sons and sometimes even more. And then, joy slowly faded a little, swept by the grim foreboding of a conflict that he prayed would never come to be, and a contrast that he did and did not want to come to pass at the same time.

Jena bled the child at the same time Dyanna's belly started curving more visibly, so rapidly that she had to add additional panels to some of her gowns as the seamstresses hurried to sew her some more. Actually, the Grand Maester had left her chambers after confirming that she was doing great just in time to be summoned in a hurry, a helpless witness to the death of yet another of Jena's babes, this one so early on that it was impossible to say if it had been a boy. But there was little doubt in anyone's heart that Dyanna's child would be a son.

"The Prince got saddled with the wrong woman," men and women would whisper in the halls of the Red Keep, in the streets and brothels. "She of the disfigured form is more competent than the healthy one in keeping her babes in the womb."

"How long is it going to be before we're doomed to a new rebellion?" others would ask. "Or even something befalling Prince Baelor's sons? A child's life is always hanging on a thread and the Princess isn't going to give him a third son."

"Is it the hand of the Seven spread over the Dornish lady?" third would wonder. "She should not have lived, yet she blooms as she swells with this child. Is it the sign of the gods' favour for her and hers? Because she's of such loveliness and she's always served those who need it?"

In the Red Keep, they tried to keep those talks away from Baelor and Jena but the Master of Whisperers made no secret of them to Daeron. "The fools predict a war already," he would say, his single eye giving a dark glitter. "I say we punish those who speak treason."

"Those are only uneducated rumours," Daeron always replied and yet he could see Maekar's growing rage and the angry envy whenever Baelor happened to look at Dyanna in the halls. Slowly, the evil notion started taking roots in his mind, as hard as he fought it. People had talked about Daemon trying to seize the throne long before it became even a viable possibility in his mind and his counselors' minds. Would they turn out to be right again? The rumours of the Seven having withdrawn their blessing from his family were nothing new, only this time Dyanna had turned from a cursed one to a blessed one. What if one day… no, that was impossible. And still, what if? No, not Maekar, of course. He was loyal. He would never reach for something that wasn't his. But he did feel wronged, and in many ways he was far more justified than Daemon. All the acclaim for Redgrass Field had gone to Baelor. Daeron might not be a warrior but he knew enough to be aware that Maekar had been given the harder task. It was always easier to attack than defend, withstand. And he had received such a small part of the recognition he deserved.

Still, that didn't mean that he would follow in Daemon's footsteps. But if he changed one day? If enough people decided that Valarr wasn't what they wanted in a king and threw their support behind his cousins instead? Of course, Baelor was beloved while no one could say such a thing about Maekar – but coming on the thone, he'd create enemies even in some of those who were now his friends. What if Maekar's heart changed? If only Dyanna gave birth to a son, he'd be able to show the promise of a stable succession, with a queen who was just as beloved as Baelor. Yes, Dyanna knew how to win hearts and minds. Not that she had ever tried to undermine anyone.

When he tried to share some of those concerns with Mariah, he was met with disbelief and anger, and for just a second time in their life together, lack of love so distinct that it froze the room all over.

"Did you just compare Maekar to Daemon Blackfyre?" she asked and while he rushed to explain that he had meant no such thing, he realized that in this, he would not receive a sound advice. When he reached for her hand, she shook his away angrily. She would not hear him and that left him even less clear with his own ideas, fears, hopes. "Are you hoping that Dyanna loses the child?" she asked straightforwardly and cruelly. "Is this going to make you happy?"

"No!" he answered immediately, shame choking him because he wasn't entirely sure that it was true. He hoped that Dyanna gave them a girl child while only a few years ago, his hopes had been for a living one.

The suspicion still lingered in Mariah's eyes. "You've got no shame…" she spat and Daeron knew that she had gone back in those terrible days about a year ago when they had still been unsure that Maekar wouldn't lose an arm to the grievous wound that he had sustained defending Daeron's throne. She rose from her chair. "I'm going to my chambers," she said when she saw his surprise. "Do not wait for me tonight."

A week later, maesters and midwives gathered in Dyanna's rooms, their fear palpable. They had never delivered a woman who had survived the corroding disease and yet the child arrived as swiftly as Aerion, a third boy and not the girl Daeron had hoped for. And still, when they placed the tiny newborn in his arms and he saw the eyes, wide open and staring – staring! – straight at his, he felt the same unbridled joy that he had experienced at the births of his older, eagerly awaited grandsons.

"Aemon," he said without thinking. "We'll name him Aemon, Maekar."

Only when his son looked at Dyanna did he realize that Maekar and his wife may have had their own ideas of how to name their new son. But then, Dyanna shrugged and Maekar smiled. "Very well," he said. "Aemon it is."

It was only fitting for a boy that Daeron had the sudden, odd conviction would be closer to him than any of his older grandsons. The name of a good and fair man who had always reined in the storms in his heart, done the right thing. Please, Daeron thought. Please do the right thing one day.

Because by now, he was sadly certain that no matter what he would do, there would be someone for whom it would not be the right thing.