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Blue and Fading in the Sun
The Princess
Elia listened to him without interrupting once. At the end, she didn't even sigh. She only looked at him and asked, "Can you truly defeat them all?"
Rhaegar had expected tears, a sigh, something. Now, he couldn't say why. In his almost two years with Elia, he had found out that she might look as fragile as the finest Essosi silk but she was made of the hardest steel Valyria had ever produced. She hadn't even changed face. Only her hands, clasped in her lap and white like a silver chalice, betrayed that she understood the whole gravity of the situation all too well. Was she scared? Rhaegar didn't know her well enough to say but something in the set of her mouth made him think that she might be.
"Yes," he said with more certainty than he felt. Then again, none of the other competitors would be so motivated. His father was mad enough to go forward with his threat. "And you must be present. That's what he wants."
Elia smiled sarcastically. "Of course that's his wish. But I wouldn't be anywhere else anyway. I'd rather face what comes with my chin raised high instead of have my ladies whisper it to me, eager to see my heartbreak."
A little part of Rhaegar felt a shameful delight. At least there would be heartbreak. They were no longer two strangers who shared a life and bed. He wasn't sure what they were but they had built something that could have been put in jeopardy if he had meant the gesture he'd make the next day.
It still might. The humiliation would be so, so bitter. In a moment of terrible fear and regret, he wondered in his father hoped that the debacle would make Elia bleed the babe. He suspected that it might have, had she been unprepared.
Her face softened. She patted his hand. "It isn't your doing, Rhaegar."
But it was. He should have seen what his father was turning into earlier. So much earlier. He had been clinging to the memories of his childhood and refusing to see the present for too long.
"Should I warn her?" he finally asked. "The Stark girl?"
He knew Elia well enough to know that she'd disdain any attempts of comfort on his part. She was a proud woman, his sickly Dornish wife. And she cared about the others. Perhaps if he engaged her into Lyanna Stark's plea, she'd forget her own for a while.
"Why?" Elia asked and gave him a look of surprise. "Why would you do this to her?"
Rhaegar squinted at her to check if she were jesting. She wasn't.
"Because I'll all but claim her as my object of interest. People will think that she's…"
"But no one will dare say it to her face," Elia said. "She's young. She's just about the age where a handsome prince courting her will be the height of romance for her. Trust me, she wouldn't give the rumours a thought at all. She'll be happy in thinking that you're so desperately in love with her."
Now, there was a pale shadow of a smile on her lips that was so out of place.
"You don't understand," Rhaegar said. "She's a knight in her soul."
Elia's smile widened, patient and knowing, and he felt like a boy trying to pry meaning off those old parchments once again. Irrationally, he felt anger. For a moment, he was truly tempted to crown Lyanna for real just to see if Elia would keep being so maternal. She was only two years older and she didn't know, she hadn't seen the girl…
"She's a girl of fifteen," his wife said. "I think. I am not talking about her soul. I'm talking about her age. When we're so young, we all dream of the valiant knight who'll win a tourney for us and wed us, or at least spend the rest of his life longing to be able to do so."
All of a sudden, Rhaegar's irritation disappeared, replaced by true anger. There was a wistfulness in Elia's smile. Fondness and grief come to life. What was she talking about? What knight had taught her this? All of a sudden, he felt robbed. Cheated. Which was ridiculous. Elia had come to him with her maidenhead intact.
"If you and I are going to suffer through this, why not make at least one person happy?" Elia went on. "She'll wake up to realities of life soon enough."
"Like you did?"
His voice came out harsher than he had intended and Elia glanced at him in quick surprise. In the fading light, she looked as pure as the Maiden, her belly swollen with their child. Rhaegar was even more surprised than her. He was a rational man who valued her friendship and had never thought about the possibility to stir a longing in her heart.
"Have you been this infatuated?" he demanded.
"A long time ago, I was Lady Lyanna's age," Elia replied calmly.
"And what happened?"
"I was betrothed to him. Edric, his name was… and if he hadn't perished in an accident, I would have still been infatuated, I guess."
Rhaegar felt the lie. He felt it in the way she avoided his eyes, the way the muscles on her jaw stood out, the veil that shadowed her eyes. It had been more than infatuation. It had been love, this Edric had been her world in a way Rhaegar wasn't. The way no one had ever been his world. Abruptly, he envied her. He knew fondness for a woman, for he was fond of her. He knew admiration, for he admired that wolf-child. But he hadn't felt anything as powerful as what he could now see in her. Powerful enough to last for years. Three, at least…
Silence drew long and with it, the shadows in the room also did. When Ashara entered to light a few lamps, everything came back in place and Rhaegar was stunned at how long and deeply he had indulged in human frailties and longings. He had his destiny and his lady wife had her part to play. There had been a reason for this Edric's death. If Elia had loved him, he must have been a man of worth. The first blood shed in the long night trying to encroach on them? The first sacrifice needed for bringing the dragons back to life? A look at Elia's waxy face made him shudder in a fearsome premonition. She was so gaunt. All the flesh had left her face and extremities to go to her belly. And she needed to go through this one more time when her current trial was over. A new sacrifice? Another bloodshed, this time in the bloody bed?
No, he should not think like that. In fact, he shouldn't think about this at all, at least until winning and crowning were behind him. Prophecy was a powerful thing but Rhaegar didn't quite trust it to shield Rhaenys from her grandfather's wrath. Her father needed to do it.
"May I come to spend the night?" he asked and immediately disliked the pleading pitch of his own voice. He sounded as if shaming her was his idea!
Elia looked at him and smiled, widely and with real warmth. "You're welcome," she said; with immense relief, Rhaegar saw that insult and past had relinquished their grip upon her. His father's mistrust could bring the worst upon both their heads but it could not drive them apart. When all was said and done, they were a team and that was what he needed and cherished.
"Ser Barristan will be the only opponent you need to fear," Arthur said curtly, returning to polishing Dawn, something that he did whenever he wanted to compose himself. Ever the perfect Kingsguard, he wouldn't allow himself criticize the King even now and for this, Rhaegar was grateful.
That was Rhaegar's opinion as well and he was relieved to hear it confirmed but at the same time, it also made his helplessness grow. In the whirlwind of anger, fear and mortification gripping him, he also felt robbed which surprised him. He wanted Rhaenys to be safe, of course he wanted to, and he valued Arthur's willingness to suffer a defeat for this. But triumphing over Arthur had been one of the few things that he truly wanted from his martial training. Since the very moment he had seen Arthur with Dawn, he had been burning to be able to defeat him on the field and lately, he had been so close to it. Yet another thing Aerys had stolen from him, a victory that would have been truly his, for Rhaegar believed he could now achieve it fairly and squarely. But he could not take the risk and so, he'd never know.
"How low the dragons have fallen," he said bitterly. "Fixing tournaments to shame two women at once. Aegon the Unworthy would have been proud."
Arthur's silence was an answer enough. He started polishing more furiously.
"It isn't like this at all," he finally said. "You aren't doing it because you desire it. Your hand is being forced."
"That's what Elia said as well," Rhaegar said and to his own horror added, "I suppose Edric would have done better."
He was stunned to discover this small piece of resentment still simmering in his chest and wondered why this was. He had always known that Elia had been pledged to marry someone else before they were betrothed. His irrational anger towards the dead man shamed him.
Perhaps Arthur didn't know what he was talking about… One look at him confirmed that he knew.
"I doubt it," Arthur said. "He liked being cornered no better than you do. And he would have been no more pleased than you are."
"You're talking with such certainty," Rhaegar said, suddenly wondering why he had never taken the time to ask Arthur about this former betrothed of Elia's.
"Because I knew him all my life," Arthur replied.
"What?" Rhaegar asked, astounded, already anticipating that he wouldn't like the answer.
There was a long time before Arthur interrupted the silence. "You mean the Princess never told you about me and Edric?"
"No," Rhaegar said flatly. "And you never did either, as you know."
"Edric was my brother."
That stunned Rhaegar into speechlessness but at the same time, he could see how the misunderstanding had happened. Elia probably thought Arthur had told him, and Arthur had thought that she had. Now he remembered the fire that had claimed the young lord's life and Arthur's ashen face at his return to King's Landing. Rhaegar himself had advocated for him to be allowed to go home for the wedding… Had the name of the bride ever been mentioned? Perhaps it had been but at the time, Rhaegar had had no reason to think that Elia Martell would ever play a role in his life. For a moment of sheer terror, he wondered if Elia had seen the fire with her own eyes. His urge to shield her grew, yet tomorrow he'd deal her a blow that all the Seven Kingdoms would see and talk about for months…
But then, it would be over. Aegon would be born. The third child would arrive soon. Sadly, there was no place in Rhaegar's world for living his own songs or pondering upon the romantic leanings of girls like Lyanna Stark or Elia Martell. As attached as he was to his wife, he should never forget that the fate of the world depended on his success. Their success. Fortunately, Elia was as hard as a diamond. She would persist. She would live through the morrow. And together, they would triumph.
