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Queen of Ashes

Life at Driftmark was… peaceful. What Daena would have called boring just a few months ago. Perhaps it was because her body was constantly reminding her that she had done it no favours with three children in three years that she didn't consider it such now. There was something soothing in no one expecting anything of her and nothing being as urgent as being unable to wait until the next day if not the one after. Daena slept till noon and then spent the day in lazy reading and sewing – pricking her fingers in the process since she had not taken an embroidery in her hands in more than ten years, since she had first become queen. Sometime in the afternoon, the wetnurse brought Alysanne to her and Daena watched her make her first steps and put everything she found in her mouth with wan interest and the merest hint of warmth. When the little one toddled over to Elaena or their mother, she didn't even mind. With time, Alysanne would learn who her mother was. If Elaena and Queen Daenaera wanted to play nursemaids, she'd leave them to it. She only made some feeble protests when her mother made her walk with her every day but even then, she acquiesced to Daenaera's wishes – something that she had never done in her life for as long as she could remember. She even smiled as she remembered her onetime wish for her mother to disappear so she could wed her father instead.

When twilight crept in, footfalls soft and unheard but fingers gentle, Daena would usually stand at the top of the highest tower in the old dilapidated castle of Driftmark. The sea pulled her in a way it had never done before, not at King's Landing, not here at Driftmark as a child. It was so beautiful. A vast fabric of many colours interwoven in each other under the deft fingers of the Sun Seamstress. Yes, sometimes Daena felt sure that an eight deity should be added to their pantheon, the one that could take the sea and turn it golden, deep blue, sprinkling silver, and burned red all in the same time, leaving the fire that had burned the red rage in the faraway line where sea and sky met.

"I bet Baelor would have loved this," Elaena only said when Daena shared this thought with her, but Daena noticed the concern in her eyes and later heard her telling their mother that she thought Daena was unwell. "It isn't like her, Mother! She's never had much patience for the beauty of tranquil things. And this old ruined castle – could you have imagined that Daena could prefer it to High Tide? She isn't herself."

Queen Daenaera shook her head. "She is," she said. "She's just tired. Just taking her time to gather her strength back. Even Daena needs time to recover after all she had been through."

"She's too faint and uninterested in anything," Elaena insisted. "Even her children."

It was true, Daena had to admit, without any regret. For all the interest she could summon in Alysanne, she could have stayed in King's Landing as well. Even the particulars about Daemon didn't hold much appeal about her anymore. She felt strangely detached from them both.

"She's suffered too much uncertainty and great changes." Daenaera sounded as if she believed what she was saying. "And women who are with child are like this sometimes. Once she gives birth, it will pass."

Only if the babe is a girl, Daena thought with much more feeling than she had experienced in many months. And then, gratitude for her mother slowly fought its way through the languor that enveloped her entire being quite pleasantly. She didn't want to be pitied and she was somewhat surprised that her mother understood her so well – without thinking her weak. Daena had never thought much about her mother – she had always preferred her father. Perhaps she had been wrong?

Even the news of Barba Bracken's fall from grace failed to rouse any emotion except for faint acknowledgment that Aemon and Daeron had done a fine job. The birth and death of Naerys' son invoked unpleasant awareness of babes' frailty and sympathy that was more than the pale stir of sadness mixed with derision she had felt on those occasions before. And the word that Mariah's child would be born soon after her own evoked a faint disappointment for not having known before.

This was ridiculous. She and the Dornishwoman had been Aegon's fellow prisoners, that was all. Not friends of anything like this. Still, the feeling that she should have been told would not go away even as she admired Mariah's strength of character and the ability to hide her state from everyone till Daeron's return.

As much as she was capable of feeling hope, she hoped that Mariah's child would be another boy. That might be Alysanne's sole chance for queenship.

Aelyx was born in the castle of High Tide, in a bright day of a recently arrived autumn as through her windows that were thrown wide open, Daena could hear the songs of the women gathering the grape harvest far away in the vineyards. For the merest moment, as she lay after expelling the afterbirth, she let the joy of growth and renewal fill her. And then, they showed her son to her.

Horror swept through her, instant and so powerful that it made her clutch the babe so hard that it cried out. The maester came close, concerned, but her mother waved him away.

The child was delightful. Like Alysanne and Daemon, he had been born with very fair skin that immediately turned red with howling and the finest tufts of silvery hair. The waving of his arms was energetic and the voice coming out of his tiny mouth even more so. He was life itself.

He was exactly what Daena did not need at all. Aegon tolerated no rivals – and he saw everyone as his rival, from Daena's late brothers to his own brother.

Brothers, now.

As her each stir to better fit Aelyx against her was a painful reminder of the women's curse she had just gone through, the last months of peace and lazy indulgence of her own languor shot through her mind like a Dornish arrow. She had spent all this time lying around when she should have been winning allies. People who would protect her son like Aemon and Daeron had protected Naerys. I must have been mad, she thought. I must have been mad but now, I'm back to my senses.

Hadn't she known that she would have to present her new child to the King? For her, it was even more important than any other Queen Dowager. The thought of her grandmother who should have been Queen in her own right yet had been constantly plagued by the rumours of her sons being bastards was never far from her mind but she had managed to push the inevitability aside.

"I must go," she whispered, as if she had to leave right now.

She had no idea why this was but this birth, her easiest one, left her abed for almost two weeks – two weeks that made her as restless as a cat. The haze veiling her mind had dissipated but her body kept her forcibly away from any activity. The day she was announced well enough to rise, she almost toppled the maester over in her eagerness to escape bed.

"Easy, easy," her mother said, catching her when she started to fall because it turned out that she wasn't well enough to jerk up. Daena leaned her head against Daenaera's shoulder and let her lead her back. She had come to realize that her mother was far stronger than her pampered looks suggested. She wouldn't let her fall.

Aelyx was a month old when they left for King's Landing. She gave Alysanne a long kiss and handed her to Elaena.

"Are you sure you won't take her along?" her sister asked and Daena shook her head. The bright autumn sun turned the sea into a vast length of shimmering silk in blue and gold and warmed her but not enough to drive away the freezing fear. She knew that Aegon wouldn't actually harm Aelyx – most likely – and he had no reasons to harm her daughter but still, she preferred to keep Alysanne as far away from him as possible. She wouldn't have shown Aelyx to him either if she had the choice.

"She has you, doesn't she? And Mother," she added and smiled. "I'll be back before you leave," she added. I hope so. Aegon might have some other ideas.

Elaena smiled back. Daena turned to say goodbye to her mother and made a step towards the boat when Elaena ran to her. "If Daeron or Mariah say something about your letters, don't act surprised."

Daena spun around, taken aback. Don't act surprised? She had no idea what her sister was talking about! "What letter? I never wrote any letters…"

"I know! That's why I did. I sent your best wishes on the occasion of her blessed state, I told them that you and Alysanne were fine here…"

Daena stared, agog, mouth agape. "You falsified my handwriting?" She knew that her sister was a master in imitating other people's writing but somehow, she had never imagined that she might find herself on the receiving end.

"Don't screech like this!" Elaena hissed in reply. "We were in agreement that something needed to be done and you just wanted to lie around. Every relation that could be mended is good for you."

They? They had acted behind Daena's back? Anger rose, choking her, but behind, relief demanded to be released. Aelyx had been her hope when Viserys was alive; now, he was just a babe and Daeron was a man grown. A man of standing and power already, it seemed. Would his allegiance be such a bad thing?

King's Landing received her coldly. With suspicion. Oh no one dared say anything to her face but the whispers would start the moment she turned her back, the eyes picking Aelyx apart glinting with eager gloating or simple but no less jarring passion for gossip. She felt a sudden longing for Viserys. While under his powerful protection, she had been treated as the most chaste woman in the realm, no matter what everyone thought.

The splendour struck her as soon as she entered the Red Keep. The windows of an entire hall were carved in honest gold! She almost stepped forward to make sure that she was seeing right. Splendour? No, vulgarity! She walked through the long hallways, surrounded by laughter and courtiers fluttering like butterflies in their colourful attires. Soon, she rather likened them to flies as they hurriedly bowed to her. Voices now melted in a general impression of twittering. She remembered the time she had wanted to be one of them, reign over like a court like this one. Little had she known of vulgarity! She kept walking, remembering the time when the favourites had all been men of little chirping but masters of their work, the time the Iron Throne had been occupied by a great king whose mind had been as sharp as the blades those lickspittles flaunted.

None of the people who had served Viserys had retained their post. Daena couldn't say she was surprised. Her sudden longing for her dead husband – or was it her uncle that she wanted? – made her wonder fleetingly what had become of the whore. The woman who had loved him. Perhaps Daeron would know.

When she was shown to her chambers – not in Maegor's Holdfast, of course, - she made sure that Aelyx was comfortable in the cradle that she demanded to be moved to her own chamber – and ordered to have Daemon brought to her.

She was prepared to hear that Aegon had left orders to the contrary but instead, her son was shown in almost immediately. Still, the short period of time had been enough for her to go to sleep in her chair. She startled when she felt his eyes on her.

She had written to him, of course, but she didn't even know if he received her letters. He wasn't three years old yet – she expected that he would have forgotten all about her. But he smiled, exclaimed, "Mother!" and processed to show her the new wooden sword the King had ordered for him. Daena tried to keep the smile on her face despite the chill running down her back. Such consistency on Aegon's part? She had counted on him getting bored and letting her take Daemon after a while. What did he want of her child? She did not think that it might be genuine love for his own offspring. Not for a moment.

She wanted to keep Daemon longer but he was itching to go back to the other children and the wetnurse gave her a look of silent apology. Daena waved her off.

Daemon was losing touch with her and that scared her even more than it saddened her.

When Aegon's hand went down, towards her babe's tiny forehead, Daena had to fight the instinct to draw back and flee. Of course, he didn't pinch Aelyx hard to make him cry or anything like this. Instead, he touched his cheek and smiled. "I am very pleased to see such a hale and hearty boy," he said, with a pointed look at Naerys. With some unwilling respect, Daena saw that her cousin didn't give him the pleasure of looking down or going white. Whatever her grief, she carried it closely guarded in her heart, not showing it to the eager court or Aegon who was even more so.

Aegon produced an emerald, as big as and egg, and Daena nodded at the wetnurse to come and take it. Then, he gave the woman forty dragons – one for each day she had nursed the newborn, and Daena felt increasingly uncomfortable with this much attention. She had feared that he'd refuse to acknowledge her son as a Targaryen'; now she stiffened and tried to find out why he was so very generous.

Daeron. He wants to use Aelyx against Daeron. To better control his heir.

The temptation of hope was so enticing… Her son the official heir… Dorne being taught her place. Daeron's death avenged. Oh he knew how to seduce her, he did! But Daena knew how fickle he was. At the end, he'd use her and her children the way he wished and then, he'd throw them away… if they were lucky. Aegon had had his father murdered. He'd never accept Aelyx as his heir, no matter what he would imply to prevent her from turning to other allies.

Was she ready to throw in her lot with him? Daena sought the answer in her mind, forbidding the desire of her heart any part in the decision.

No, she wasn't.

As the everyone took their place for the feast, she touched Mariah's hand, briefly. It was smart of Aegon to place her next to the Dornishwoman – the two of them had rarely talked before.

"I'd like to talk to you and Daeron," she said. "As soon as possible."

After a short pause, Mariah nodded and Daena tried to imagine what Elaena had written in those dratted letters of hers.