Elia cradled her infant son, trying to calm him down. The thunder continued to rumble angrily over the sea. Rhaegar had stopped shuddering. Panting in an effort the catch his breath, he rose from the bed and walked towards the window and leaned against the window sill. Fear stirred in Elia's belly as she waited for him to speak.

"I'm sorry I woke him," Rhaegar's spoke in a low monotone, exhausted, "and you."

"He rested well in the afternoon," Elia said, rocking Aegon back to sleep. "As did I," she added. It was a lie, but she didn't want to add to her husband's anxiety. Tonight had been especially bad.

After she laid their son back into his crib, Elia poured wine into two cups that sat on the bedside table. She was used to this by now. Initially she had thought him mad. He would writhe and scream and spout madness when he woke, panting and afraid. She had been so afraid of him and ever so homesick. She had wanted to return to Sunspear, away from this madman she had been forced to marry. She would breathe freely in the daytime and grow afraid as the sun sank into the west. Every night he would wake in a cold sweat, some nights were worse than others. But every night he would tell her what he had seen and plead her to believe him. She had refused to believe, though. Green dreams were but myths, fables told to children at bedtime. These were but ramblings of a madman. Elia knew it ran in his blood. But it hadn't been merely madness. This truth she had learned in the most mortifying way.

The prince had awoken near dawn, screaming her name.

"ELIA!" in blood-curdling tones he screamed uncontrollably, his brow damp with sweat. She had jolted awake in fear on hearing her name. Breathing heavily, she had shaken his shoulders in an effort to wake him out of his trance. "I am here, my prince, beside you!"

Rhaegar had not heard her. He continued to writhe and scream, despite her efforts to comfort him. Tears streamed down his blank eyes. "ELIA! NO! UNHAND HER!" Elia continued to call out to him, to reassure him that she was by his side and not suffering whatever dark fate he believed to have befallen her. But he did not hear her. Instead he wept and screamed the word 'Elia' repeatedly. It had been the first time he had uttered her name.

Then it had stopped and the prince had awoken. Fear shone in his purple eyes, but it was not the same fear they would reflect when he saw the darkness. It was a fear that seemed to somehow be laced with anger and pain. He had turned slowly to look at Elia to see that she, too, had been crying. Hurriedly, he had pulled her into a tight embrace.

It was as Elia had felt Rhaegar's strong arms around her shake with fear, that the prince had told her that he had seen her death.

Madness, Elia had thought, as the troubled prince wept into her shoulder, it is but madness…It ran in his family, as she had come to realize in her days living in the Red Keep. The King's madness was no secret, it was but spoken of in hushed tones behind closed doors. Elia had even heard Queen Rhaella's handmaidens whisper about bruises on the queen's limbs and face morning after morning. Word of young Prince Viserys having strangled his pet cat in a fit of anger had confirmed her suspicions that even he was headed down a path similar to his royal father's. Generations of darkness brew within the veins of the dragon lords and Elia had seen it. She had but chosen to live with her fate as the wife of a madman, finding what little comfort she could in the fact that Rhaegar had never struck her nor had he ever forced himself on her. So she had done what she could do for the prince. She had tried to calm him as he told her of a warrior bearing the sigil of three dogs on a yellow field, thrice the size of an ordinary man who, in his vision, had driven a long sword through her belly after raping her repeatedly. These dreams, this fear… it was all but madness.

The next day in the king's court, she had felt her heart stop. The air felt like it had been sucked out of her lungs as Lord Tywin Lannister, the new Hand of the King, had marched into the Great Hall with his men. The lion lord was followed shortly by the largest man she had ever seen in her life. He stood taller and wider than any man in Lord Tywin's garrison, or rather, than any she had ever laid eyes upon. There had been murder in his eyes. His armour had rattled with each mammoth step he took. As he grew closer to the royal dais, Elia saw the sigil he bore on his shield. A chill went past the nape of her neck as she saw the three dogs on the yellow field. She had turned in horror, to face her husband. Rhaegar had closed his eyes as a tear slid down his face. His fear had been realized.

Neither Rhaegar, nor Elia had ever seen or heard of the man they called the Mountain nor had they ever known of the existence of House Clegane, sworn to House Lannister in the Westerlands.

It was in that moment as Elia watched the dragonprince sob silently as his nightmares came to life before her eyes, that she finally believed him.

"What did you see?" she asked in a quiet voice so as not to wake Aegon once more. Rhaegar gulped down his wine in one motion. She had always feared asking him that question. She sometimes wondered what it would be like if she did not ask him, if he never told her what he saw, if he had never told her of Clegane, if she had just remained oblivious to what the future bore. But then she would look upon the face of the man whose bed she shared night after night. She imagined the torture of being in his mind, in his thoughts, trapped in the bitter truth of the fate that awaited him. She had the luxury or choice, he didn't. Her fate had now been tied to his. She was now caught in this vortex that she could not escape.

"Elia," the prince said after draining the last of his wine, "I fear I have failed you in what I must now do."

*** Ok I know what you're thinking. Elia just found out she's going to be brutally raped and murdered and has no reaction?! WTF! I promise I will plug all the holes the story seems to have in the coming chapters so please be patient :D Thanks for reading!