"Harrenhal." Every child of the Trident knew the tales told of Harrenhal, the vast fortress that King Harren the Black had raised beside the waters of Gods Eye three hundred years past, when the Seven Kingdoms had been seven kingdoms, and the riverlands were ruled by the ironmen from the islands. In his pride, Harren had desired the highest hall and tallest towers in al Westeros. Forty years it had taken, rising like a great shadow on the shore of the lake while Harren's armies plundered his neighbors for stone, lumber, gold, and workers.

Thousands of captives died in his quarries, chained to his sledges, or laboring on his five colossal towers. Men froze by winter and sweltered in summer. Weirwoods that had stood three thousand years were cut down for beams and rafters. Harren had beggared the riverlands and the Iron Islands alike to ornament his dream. And when at last Harrenhal stood complete, on the very day King Harren took up residence, Aegon the Conqueror had come ashore at King's Landing.

Catelyn could remember hearing Old Nan tell the story to her own children, back at Winterfell. "And King Harren learned that thick walls and high towers are small use against dragons," the tale always ended. "For dragons fly." Harren and all his line had perished in the fires that engulfed his monstrous fortress, and every house that held Harrenhal since had come to misfortune. Strong it might be, but it was a dark place, and cursed.

- A Clash of Kings


It would be better once they got to Harrenhal, the captives told each other, but Arya was not so certain. She remembered Old Nan's stories of the castle built on fear. Harren the Black had mixed human blood in the mortar, Nan used to say, dropping her voice so the children would need to lean close to hear, but Aegon's dragons had roasted Harren and all his sons within their great walls of stone. Arya chewed her lip as she walked along on feet grown hard with callus. It would not be much longer, she told herself; those towers could not be more than a few miles off.

Yet they walked all that day and most of the next before at last they reached the fringes of Lord Tywin's army, encamped west of the castle amidst the scorched remains of a town. Harrenhal was deceptive from afar, because it was so huge. Its colossal curtain walls rose beside the lake, sheer and sudden as mountain cliffs, while atop their battlements the rows of wood-and-iron scorpions looked as small as the bugs for which they were named.

The stink of the Lannister host reached Arya wel before she could make out the devices on the banners that sprouted along the lakeshore, atop the pavilions of the westermen. From the smell, Arya could tel that Lord Tywin had been here some time. The latrines that ringed the encampment were overflowing and swarming with flies, and she saw faint greenish fuzz on many of the sharpened stakes that protected the perimeters.

Harrenhal's gatehouse, itself as large as Winterfell's Great Keep, was as scarred as it was massive, its stones fissured and discolored. From outside, only the tops of five immense towers could be seen beyond the wal s. The shortest of them was half again as tall as the highest tower in Winterfell, but they did not soar the way a proper tower did. Arya thought they looked like some old man's gnarled, knuckly fingers groping after a passing cloud. She remembered Nan telling how the stone had melted and flowed like candlewax down the steps and in the windows, glowing a sullen searing red as it sought out Harren where he hid. Arya could believe every word; each tower was more grotesque and misshapen than the last, lumpy and runneled and cracked.

"I don't want to go there," Hot Pie squeaked as Harrenhal opened its gates to them. "There's ghosts in there."

Chiswyck heard him, but for once he only smiled. "Baker boy, here's your choice. Come join the ghosts, or be one."

- A Clash of Kings


She had never beheld a more fearsome sight.

Oberyn had travelled widely in the Free Cities. He had been taken to Braavos by their lord father, the only true Free City built as it was by slaves, when he was five. He said that the first time they had come into the Harbour and heard the Giant's roar he had almost shat his breeches.

Doran had wooed and won his bride in Norvos. He said there was nothing as awe-inspiring as the sight of R'hllor's temples, stretching their bloody lances up to the sky, nothing as fearsome as the thunder of the pealing bells all through the city and the cries of the faithful when the nightfires were lit every dusk. They give a child to the fires once a year, he had told her.

To keep the long winter and it's ice demons at bay, for nothing is as sweet to the Lord of Light than the innocent, than a sacrifice willingly offered. It is a festival day for them, the bears dance down the Sinner's Steps and hippocrass and red wine flow from the public fountains. Women of the poorer sort don their best dresses and it is said to be a most auspicious day for weddings and births. That is what is most terrible about it, in the midst of such a cruel death they celebrate life.

Lady Mellario had never seen anything out of place about it. It had been her way of life and she could never understand her lord husband's qualms about such a holy sacrifice, though she loved him with all her heart.

Elia was a Dornish princess. One day she would be a Targaryen queen. It would never fall to her lot to see such visions as her brothers had been granted, though she knew Rhaegar longed to travel through the Seven Kingdoms and beyond. As she stood on the parapets of the Kingspyre, highest of Harrenhal's towers, and looked down she thought that she would not care to see anything more terrible.

From here, she could see what seemed to be all of the Riverlands, castles and keeps, so many of them, nestled by hills and rivers. Harrenhal itself looked down on the hard, glittering waters of the God's Eye. Passing strange tales were told of the Isle of Faces which lay within it, of wargs and greenseers and the vanished Children of the Forest. Bedtales, she might have dismissed them, but Rhaegar had said there was more than met the eye. It was near enough to Summerhall where he often went, why had he never uncovered the mysteries of that isle, she had once asked him.

Because there are some places where even dragons fear to tread, he had told her, with a smile that had revealed nothing. There are some places which even I hold sacred though you think me the worst kind of infidel, my love.

It had brought ill luck to every noble family that had lived here, this demon castle. From Harren, mad in his pride, to the blood-drinking Lothstons who would hold feasts of human flesh within the walls. Elia rather wondered that the Whents dared hold this questionable seat, that they dared invite the gods' notice so far as to hold such a grand tourney here. It was just asking for trouble, in her opinion, though to be sure she had no courage to speak of, even for a woman.

I would stay small and low, she thought, I would want to keep safe above else if I were them. I would hide from kings and gods. That is the happiest kind of life, to be so low that none might notice you, so small that it would not matter at all if you failed.

She had failed in her duty and the ache of it felt as sore as the pain that had wracked her body after Rhaenys' birth. She had been bedridden for six months afterwards but that pain could not compare to this one, this shame.

The grounds were checkered squares of colour, patched by darkness in the places where the shadows of the mammoth towers fell. The silver thread of a stream ran through the godswood that was more forest than wood. Men as tiny as ants prowled the curtain walls, those below them who made merry at the pavilions were but specks of dust. It is a kingdom unto itself, she thought and then decided, no, it is greater still. It is a world. Is this how the gods must feel when they look down on their creations? Terribly, terribly mortal?

The dragon must have three heads, she thought dully. And I shall bear no other living child.

She rested her elbows on the walls. It was a great fall. Cersei Lannister would have been happy to give her the push. So would Queen Rhaella, come to think of it. She loved her son too well, Elia knew, though she managed to conceal it. But then she is a Targaryen. It cannot be called unnatural in her - the dragonriders would match brother to sister and at times, mother to son, to keep their bloodlines pure so that their dragons would know them by the smell of their shared blood and be quickly tamed.

She had bidden her ladies stand some distance from her, she would look upon this view alone and pretend to be a god. Their idle chatter still reached her. The Tully girls and young Lord Robert's betrothed had joined them today. Lysa and Catelyn were as sweet and tractable as ever but the Stark girl was something else - she was as rude as a dowager, secure in her position, and wilful as a toddler. It was almost as though she resented being made to join the princess's retinue at the price of her own freedom, though many would have accounted it a great honour.

"My maid Bella said that there's a queer old eastern woman who's set up shop in a caravan," Ashara was saying. "She sucks the blood off your finger and tells your fortune for you, and for just a penny too. Do let's go and see her, I'm simply dying to be told the name of the puissant lord that I'm to be wed to."

Elia smiled. Puissant was Ashara's favourite word of the month - she had taken it off Ser Barristan whose language was entirely too courtly.

Lyanna Stark's voice was very sour as she said, "Bloodmagic is said to be the oldest and blackest of the sorcerer's arts. It is not to be so lightly taken, my lady. Indeed it is a sort of blasphemy against the gods to make mock of it."

"Your gods," Ashara said very pertly. "I believe in the Seven and they are against all manner of sorcery, from bloodmagic to greenseeing."

"Of course they are," Lyanna said disdainfully. "They're not real gods are they? Just false idols you shape out of gold and clay, pretty things you like to look at and pretend you're actually praying." Evidently the girl was most devout - or simply contrary for the sake of being contrary. It was hard to tell.

Unexpectedly little Lysa who was so shy and docile, piped up. "You pray to a tree. How is that worse than praying to a statue?"

"It's not just a tree, you silly chit. It's a weirwood and the Children of the Forest carved faces into their heart trees so that they might look through time-"

"Surely you don't believe in the Children of the Forest?" Mariya Darry laughed. "My, aren't you quite natural. How you will charm young Lord Baratheon. Every man wants an innocent virgin in his bridal bed but you are quite a child."

"Well at least I do charm him," Lyanna said with poisonous sweetness. "I'm pretty enough, aren't I? Unlike you. Oh we laughed over you last night, Lady Mariya, Robert and I. You needn't flash your ankles in that vulgar way at him when you dance - they're so thick that only a giant might find them arousing. But then Freys can't be choosers. There are so very many of them that they must be content with pickings and leavings."

Not content with that, she moved on to Lynesse Hightower, ignoring the other girls' gasps. " And you, you little brat, how old d'you think you are? If I have to hear you squeak about lovers once again, I swear I'll choke the breath out of that reedlike throat of yours - it isn't sweet and endearing. It's annoying. Lady Selyse, for the last time, I do not care to know to which of the Fossoways Lord Tyrell's sister is wed to nor what name Lord Hewitt will care to bestow upon his heir. If I were you, I'd be plucking hairs off my chin instead of plucking my head in another book. Or I would be learning whore's tricks - no man in his right senses would lie with you, it would be a horror even in the dark but if you learnt to use your mouth to better advantage than reciting bone-dry facts then perhaps..."

Ashara, who would laugh at anything, giggled. "I think we shall get along capitally, Lady Lyanna," she said amiably. "With your sweet tongue and my charm, we shall conquer all seven heavens one by one. And when we are quite through with them, we shall move on to your dear trees."

Lyanna sounded very vexed as she snapped, "And why should I care if we get along capitally or not? I do not think that I will ever see you after this tourney is over unless you live an old maid for the rest of your life, waiting on the princess. The gods know you're old enough to be betrothed but you're still unspoken for."

"Oh I fancy I shall pick a husband for myself if my father doesn't care enough to do it for me," Ashara said dryly. "In a pinch dear old Ser Barristan should do."

"He's a White Knight!" protested Mariya, very shocked.

"All the better," Ashara said brightly. "We shall be the scandal of the season, Grandfather White-as-Winter and a maid as fresh and fair as spring. We shall run away to Norvos and train dancing bears and then naturally, a Lyseni corsair king will lay his eyes upon me and take me for his own. After he has had his way with me in all the vile and unspeakable ways the Lyseni are capable, seven sighs and seven sucks and all that, he shall sacrifice me to the waves and I shall emerge from the sea foam as a mermaid, in the way of the Ironborn for what is dead can never die. Then I shall swim to Storm's End and have my dirty way with sweet Lady Lyanna's sons, all seven of them, aye, all together at once, just like the Storm Kings of old mated with mermaids. And my princess will sigh and shake her head, just as she is doing now."

Elia was. She turned, laughing. "You have me there," she had to admit, smiling. "I do not know what it is about your idle chatter that captivates me so, for there is neither wit nor wisdom in it."

"We have fools to be witty for us and you and Prince Rhaegar to be good and wise," Ashara said merrily. "But we have only one of me, who is neither wise nor witty but very, very charming. I believe I shall snare your betrothed, Lady Lyanna, for my ankles are quite as trim as yours and I have the sweeter temper."

"No man worth the name prefers a woman with a sweet temper," Lyanna said grandly, as though she knew much and more of men. "Just as no man of spirit would ride a broken filly."

"And you are quite the savage," Mariya said sharply. "Most men would delight in you, my lady. Judging from your words, some must surely have."

Lyanna grinned cheekily. "We follow the old ways in the north," she said sweetly. "The custom of the first night - the lord takes a new-made bride to his bed before her husband can savour her. And while he takes his pleasure from her fresh, buxom body the lady of the castle enjoys the services of her husband-to-be. That way they are both well and truly broken in. We do not care to let our smallfolk ride mounts too spirited."

The girls were well and truly letting their mouths run away with them. Queen Rhaella would never have permitted such bawdy talk. Elia knew she was but a poor chaperone but she couldn't help but enjoy herself - and besides, she was always shy about exerting her will. To distract them, she clapped her hands together and said, "Ladies, please. Trifling quarrels and petty rivalries add seasoning to dull days spent sewing in galleries. They are unworthy of such a grand tourney, of a day as merry as this one ought to be by rights."

She could almost hear Ashara clicking her tongue in impatience at the floridness of her words. This was how a queen ought to speak, this was how her good mother spoke in truth and there were no japes made about her. Queen Rhaella was stately, ever regal, but Elia could never shake off the thought that she was but a pale shadow of the woman, that she was always trying too hard and falling too short.

"Let us make haste and see what Harrenhal has to offer us," Elia said. "Come, my ladies." She swept forwards and the girls' gowns rustled like autumn leaves as they sank into curtseys.

Uncle Lewyn stood in attendance upon her today. He held out his arm for her with a kind smile. Dear Uncle Lewyn, he had been her first ally in King's Landing and even now she trusted him most of all the knights of the Kingsguard, good and honourable though they were. They were her sworn swords but their first allegiance would never be to her but to their king, be he mad or sane. They were not bound to her in blood as Loreza of Dorne's brother was.

It would be a long climb down but Elia was sure she could manage it. She hoped.

"No man's gold was from them, nor any maiden's hand. Oh, the brothers of the Kingswood, that fearsome outlaw band." It was Lyanna Stark, warbling as blithely as a bird.

Elia smiled to remember the song. "I was part of the princess's honour guard when she was brought to King's Landing," Ashara was saying. "Her Grace sent me herself, so that she might have a familiar Dornish face to cheer her by, though I hadn't been in Dorne since I was a child. I was raised at court you know, after my lady mother died."

"And I suppose you cheered her," Lyanna said, sounding cross that her song had been interrupted. "Though the gods only know how."

"She didn't need any cheering. We were so busy being attacked that she didn't have time at all to mope."

"Attacked?"

Several of the girls squealed in impatience. "Oh not that story again, Ashara! We've heard it half-a-hundred times, how very brave you were, how very handsome they were-"

"Well Lady Lyanna hasn't heard it," Ashara said. "And I consider it my duty to warn her of what a perilous place the Kingswood can be if one doesn't take care - she might find herself less fond of the godswood if I explain it quite clearly to her. I shall have saved her soul from the trees and the Seven shall smile down upon me."

She began the story that she had, in truth, told half-a-hundred times. Elia did not mind, it had been the most exciting time of her life though she would not care to repeat such an was a dull, placid soul she knew - she could do well enough without adventures.

The Dornish retinue had been waylaid in the Kingswood by the fearsome Kingswood Brotherhood, that jolly band of outlaws forever immortalized in song. They had feathered the White Bull with arrows and run off with the gold and gems that had been her dower. In the midst of all the confusion, her litter had been separated from the main train and there had been one, stout and stoatish with a face like a harvest moon, who had parted the yellow silk curtains to steal a kiss from her lips.

Judging from the lack of pert remarks, Lady Lyanna appeared quite fascinated by all the gore and bloodshed in Ashara's story. Elia was reminded vividly of little Viserys. Suddenly she almost wished that she were a child like him so that she might be carried down the stairs. It was exhausting. It was shameful. Princesses did not faint while climbing down from towers.

It was weak and unworthy of her. She tried to distract herself by remembering how the Brotherhood had met their end, not four moons before. It had been Arthur Dayne's work and the Lannister boy had been knighted after he distinguished himself on the field. Rhaegar had been very dark in his mood afterwards, he had said something and she had tried to offer him comfort as best as she could. But what he had said she could not remember, it was slipping from her mind try as she might to remember it.

It was only four moons ago, she thought, trying to take a deep breath. The stairs seemed to tilt and shift, the edges of the hard stone walls were blurred. Only four moons ago, I should be able to remember what he said. He went to Summerhall after it had all died down and Rhaenys said her first words while he was away. And he said... Rhaegar said...

She gasped at the sudden lance of pain in her side and then the world went black.

When she came to, she was curled up in her uncle's arms like a pitiful little rag doll. She was hemmed in by the bright silks of the girls' gowns, they peeped down at her with cruel eyes that would not forget. Ashara was on one side of her, the Stark girl on the other held her hand.

"You fainted, Your Highness," she said softly.

"Yes," Elia said. As though she needed telling. There was bile in her mouth, she could gladly have thrown up on this girl, young and pretty and hardy as she was. "Yes, I think I did." And she let herself be scooped up again and carried down like a child, like an invalid. Like a woman with one foot already in the grave, a woman of no account at all.


I was going to be a queen. Why should a queen be afraid of some hideous old woman?

- A Feast for Crows


She was a wisp of a woman, so bent and worn by the years that she might have passed for the Crone herself. Her croak was flavoured by the accents of the East but there was a touch of a Lannisport twang about it as well.

She called herself maegi, the Eastern word for sorceress, and swore that she could see your morrows in a drop of blood.

"I have been waiting to see you," she said, her face alive with malice. "Lady Princess." She bobbed a shallow curtsey and unbidden, grasped Elia's arm. "Of my daughter's line, I shall have a queen. I have seen two queens already and I should like to see a third."

Her eyes had wandered to Ashara. "I never forget a face," she said sagely. "And yours is such a pretty one that there'd be few who might not remember it, m'lady. Six years it's been and you were but a child then when I peeped up to look into the royal gallery at the fresh little maids who waited on the dragon queen. The little lioness was your age and she braved the terrors of the night to face me."

Ashara looked uncertain - an expression that was strange on her face. "You mean the tourney at Lannisport?"

But the woman had lost all interest in her. For the first time in her life, Selyse Florent was the centre of attention. "What a face you have on you, m'lady," she said, as though in wonder. "You reek too much of life when there is death all around us."

She turned to the Tully girls who were noted for their fire-red hair. "Chilly eyes," she observed, turning to Catelyn. "Like stone. And that's your sister, eh? Little one, yours are like the ice wind that howls through mountain and vale in winter." Lynesse Hightower peered at her in fascination and the old woman chuckled when she saw. "Come closer, pretty child. I will not hurt you - not much. My, my aren't you the beauty. As beautiful as a pleasure-loving, faithless whore."

"A copper for you and have done with it," Mariya Darry said impatiently. Without being asked, she placed herself squarely in the chair before the maegi's table with the crystal globes on it.

The maegi laughed. It was harsh and cruel and sent shivers down Elia's spine. "Foolish chit," she said witheringly. "Do you think I do this for your money?" She swept the coin off the table in magnificent disdain. "I have enough for me and mine, so much that it shames my lordly son to see his old mother hell-bent on riding to Harrenhal. But I never cared for lords nor queen when I was most alive and now that I am all but dead, why, it makes less matter to me than it ever did. I came for my own amusement, to see the play of life for the last time with mine own eyes, for soon they must shut and there is no mirth nor mischief worked in R'hllor's paradise, only stillness."

"A demon-worshipper," Lyanna muttered, but so low that the old woman did not catch her words.

"You need a price of your own to pay for my prophecies," the maegi said, looking down at Lady Mariya. "What have you to offer me, girl? Your sorest troubles might amount to no more than a handful of girls and only the one son to follow your lord husband. What will be your secret shames? A slattern for a daughter who's lain with every stableboy in the castle? A pig for another daughter, sold for silver?"

She turned to Elia. "I have been waiting for you," she repeated again. "Come, give me your hand."

"No," Elia said. She forced herself to smile but her voice was firm. "No, thank you."

"Come, Highness." The woman was clearly impatient. "It will not hurt."

"Perhaps it will not hurt you," Elia said, "But it would hurt me a great deal. I do not care to look into my fate, whether ill or good, it is spun either way and there is naught that I can do to change it."

There were tales told of those who dared meddle with fate and came to more grievous ends than they would have if they had left well alone. Rhaegar believed in fate and prophecy as keenly as lesser men believed in their gods, indeed it was the rock on which his life was built. Who was she to question his wisdom?

The woman threw her a shrewd look. "Fates can be changed to suit men, Lady Princess. Only a fool would believe otherwise."

Elia only shook her head and took a step back. She feared that she might let herself be drawn in by the woman. "It is sorcery such as I dare not meddle in either way," she said decidedly. She repeated the Stark girl's words, "Bloodmagic ought never to be taken lightly."

The maegi cackled, her eyes lighting up queerly. "Why you're a wiser woman than I thought you to be after all," she said. "Queens and princesses ought not take it lightly, though that pretty child would never believe me if I told her. Still wouldn't if she saw me today, I make no doubt. No matter. Perhaps one of these chits in waiting will have a good hand for me. Now then."

The chits in waiting lined up to have their fortunes told, as eager as a basketful of puppies. Fearing temptation, Elia stepped outside the caravan where the air was cooler and not so tempered with spices to cloud the mind and heat the blood. Not entirely to her surprise, Lady Lyanna followed her out.

A pretty maid, Elia thought, slim and supple like a young weirwood. She wore a gown of palest blue silk, strewn with roses. The leaves were of silver and gold thread, the petals seed-pearls. Her long hair had been plaited down her back, but for the leaves of beaten silver it was as simple a style as a village maid might wear. It suited her.

"My father's choice," Lyanna said, making a face and pinching the rich material of her gown. "I thought it too grand to be worn by day but he said that I would feel a beggar among all the fine ladies of the court if I did not take pains with my attire."

Elia, her silken gown swirling with all the colours of flame and sunset - reds and golds and burnt oranges - had to agree. "We dress too finely, in truth," she said. "I would prefer something simpler but we are on show for the benefit of the realm and we must look the part. Come walk with me." She held out her arm and Lyanna took it.

"I did not think that you would care to walk with me, Your Highness," the girl said presently. "I went out of my way to be as rude to you as I possibly could." She was as awkward as a colt but then she was very young. And then there was something very engaging about her frankness. "I- I rather hoped that you would dismiss me from your attending on you though the Tullys would bury me alive if they knew what I was up to."

Elia laughed. "Catelyn would freeze you to death with one look from her eyes. She is well-fitted for the north for she is the very soul of cold, rigid correctness."

"And Lysa? Would she scald me to death with her tongue?"

Elia shook her head. "She is devious," she said. "She does not say much but she always plots in secret. When she is caught, she hides and hopes that everyone will forget her but usually she is quite clever at covering up her misdeeds." It was a hard opinion of a thirteen-year-old girl but then it was only the truth. Besides Lysa was amply dowered in other fine qualities - she could be sweet and her heart was a loving one though it had been soured by perpetually being in her more accomplished sister's shadow.

When they are women wed and far from eachother, they will love eachother more. Absence makes the heart grow fonder.

"You seem to know much of them, my lady."

"They were my companions for a year," Elia said calmly. "And I rather fancy studying characters - it is a little quirk of mine."

"Oh?" Lyanna's eyebrows shot up. "What d'you make of mine then?" she asked imperiously.

Elia smiled mischievously. "A magician never reveals his tricks, child, haven't you been told that often enough?"

"Oh aye," the girl said unmoved. "And neither does a charlatan until he is unmasked."

"Unmask me if you dare."

"I cannot if you will not offer your opinion of me."

"But I hardly know you at all, Lady Lyanna. I have not spent even a day in your company."

"You would not need to. Everyone tells me I'm hopelessly shallow and spoiled."

"Oh my. That is sad. Are you?"

Lyanna Stark looked thoughtful, as though she had never considered that. As though she had never needed to. "That's what everyone says," she said slowly. "Shallow. Spoiled. Stupid. Sweet when I have a mind to be." She ticked them off her fingers, like a little girl who had just learnt to count. "Jealous. Possessive. Vengeful." She gave a hopeless shrug. "I do not know."

"Colourful. You seem to be made up of many parts."

Lyanna shook her head. "Oh no," she said, terribly in earnest. "Just ordinary. No, nothing out of the ordinary in fact. I am like everyone else, better than many I suppose, worse than some."

"That seems tame to me and I did not take you to be so meekly made, to resign yourself to so plain a nature."

Lyanna flashed her a smile. "We all learn to resign ourselves." There was something very rueful in her face. "Little as we like it. I know my duty. It is to be very plain, very dull. Why should I care to fight since even a princess as great as you will not? It was for fear that you left that woman, not because you did not care to see a destiny that you thought you could not change."

Cheeky. "Tell me, child, does this have anything to do with your betrothed? Young Lord Robert?"

"Nothing and everything."

Elia smiled. "Well if you would have me sketch your nature for you, you might tell me more of the nothing that must mean everything to you soon."

Lyanna shot her a measuring look. "Tit for tat. You tell me and I tell you."

It was so childish that Elia had to laugh. She was a light-hearted young thing, this Stark girl, and she made Elia forget her own troubles. "Tell you what?"

"Why, how you liked His Highness the Prince, when you first saw him."

Elia coloured. "Oh well enough," she said, almost shyly. "As well as any other girl in the Seven Kingdoms would, were she betrothed to a prince. When I was sixteen and still unspoken for, my lady mother had me travel with her to find a husband for me - Oberyn and I laughed at the Hightower boy and prayed on our knees that we would not be bound in holy matrimony to those fearsome Lannister children."

"I have heard quite a bit about the Lannisters," Lyanna said reflectively. "I think I should like to see them."

"You would not," Elia said very earnestly. "Perhaps you might like to look upon - they are very comely, both of them - but after you had looked your fill you would hie away if you had any sense." My good mother has no sense, she decided. For she dotes upon Cersei and Jaime. She says it is because she loved their mother, the Lady Joanna, well but then my mother was one of her companions too and she cannot bear the sight of me.

Not to be deterred, Lyanna ploughed on. "But you haven't told me about you and the prince."

Elia was vexed to feel that she was still blushing. "Oh what is there to tell?" she asked. "A man and a maid, the maiden very shy, the man most comely. How could I help but fall in love?"

"Robert is said to be very comely."

"Ah, but you are not said to be shy, my lady. It must needs work both ways." It seemed as though they had been walking for a long time, though it might have been only a few minutes in truth. She tired easily.

Uncle Lewyn, who had been following them, was receptive as ever to her needs. "Your Highness," he said, unfastening the mother-of-pearl spear clasps of his velvet cloak. He cast it down upon the ground, under the shade of the trees.

"You are too kind, uncle," Elia said, spreading her skirts about her as she sank down. She looked up, those were apple trees in blossom above her. Theirs was a spreading canopy of soft pink petals and glossy leaves, mellow sunshine flooding through their chinks. She tilted her face upwards, letting the warm golden light wash over her. How she loved spring.

Lady Lyanna had drawn her knees up to her chest, quite a childish position but most endearing. She was smiling, her lovely dimples very much in evidence.

"Eleven years since the last spring, according to my lord father," she said. "I was too young to remember it, of course. Do you remember it, my lady?"

Elia considered that. "Winters in Dorne must be as mellow as northern summers," she said. "I was ten when the last spring past us by, a child playing in the pools of the Water Gardens with my brother. They are very lovely, the Water Gardens, fountains and fruit trees, pink marble and laughing children. They were built for a Targaryen princess, a gentle soul whose mother's love extended to all children, be they great or ever so mean."

"Dragons planting trees?" Lyanna sounded amused.

"Some do. Prince Rhaegar hopes to." She watched the girl's face carefully for signs of interest. True Lyanna's face did brighten, there was an alertness in her eyes now where there had been only a sleepy complaisance. It did not mean anything - all of her ladies-in-waiting were prone to falling in love with her husband every now and then and yet Rhaegar, who had every reason in the world to stray, had kept his faith with her.

"Spring is very sweet. You must have been born in the spring. Winter had already begun once I set foot in the Red Keep, it might be nothing compared to the weather of the North but it was very bitter for a girl fresh from Sunspear. My good mother would say that I had brought winter with me."

"Her Grace is not fond of you?"

Elia made a face. "Every mother weeps floods of tears on the day her son weds. You are lucky in that Lord Robert has no mother to trouble you."

"Lord Robert would be trouble enough without a mother."

Elia could not help but stroke the girl's hair. "You think so now," she said tenderly. "But in time you will come to love him."

Lyanna giggled. "But I do not want to fall in love in time, when I am sour and sagging and grey as a stoneman," she protested. "I want to fall in love now, madly, passionately in love as you fell in love with your prince."

"Why what makes you think that?" Elia asked, much amused. "Our marriage was made for convenience." Or spite, she thought, remembering the story they told of how her good father had dealt with the Lannisters. Queen Rhaella seemed to resent her husband for it - though perhaps if precious Lady Joanna's daughter was Rhaegar's bride she might have loved Elia just as well as she claimed to love Cersei now.

"Dear princess anyone who looked at your face and his could tell. I wish you much happiness in your love."

"I thank you," Elia said softly, twisting the chain of linked golden suns she wore at her throat. "There are many who wish me ill. It is good of you to be so kind." Then lightly she added, "Or otherwise my brother would surely murder him as he swore to me on my wedding day, should any harm come to me in my marriage. I would not have blood on my hands. I am sure it would take forever to clean."

Lyanna laughed. "Prince Oberyn?" she guessed. "Prince Doran is said to be staid."

"Staid and steady he calls himself. My brother Oberyn is made more fiercely - as you might have guessed by the name they've given."

"The Red Viper." Lyanna nodded sagely. "That's my brother Brandon all over again. My brother Ned's just like your brother, Prince Doran. Too cautious for words. Brandon likes to live - like me."

"Lord Robert has the look of a man who likes to live." Elia tried to steer the conversation to calmer waters, it was better for the girl if she fell quickly in love with the man she was promised to. It was tiresome mooning over a man you couldn't have, so much wasted time and energy.

"And that's why he won't suit me at all," Lyanna said, just to be wilful Elia suspected. "I would rather have someone calmer. Oil on the troubled waters of my soul."

"Why, do you have troubled waters?"

"Unexpected depths beneath the shallows that stretch so far. Will Prince Oberyn attend the tourney?"

"He would not miss it for the world." Elia smiled. "We had a bird from him this morning, he is riding in haste towards Harrenhal and we shall sup together tonight he promises."

"It's nice to have a brother to keep his promises to you," Lyanna reflected. "Brothers never play you false. Sometimes they torment the life out of you but they always love you."

"He says he has a little surprise from Oldtown for me. I wonder what it is."

"Is he full of surprises?"

"Oh, always."

"I should like to meet him."

"My dear child, remember that you are a woman to be wed."

"Will that stop him?"

"No, I rather think that it will only make him more eager."

"I live for the excitement of the chase. Who would you put your money on if it came to a duel between your brother and my betrothed?"

"You ought not say such things."

"You would be duty bound to support your brother of course. So would I if it came down to a duel between any of my brothers and His Highness."

"The thought seems to excite you."

"You have no idea how I love a storm of swords."

"Is that a hint for me?"

"If you will take it in that vein then - yes."

"My wits are not as sharp as yours, Lady Lyanna. Do explain."

"I want to see them in the practice courts," Lyanna said bluntly. "I always do around this time, at midmorning. I never miss a day - it's the warmest time of the day, before they're too tired to fence properly, they're all ready for the new day. All that energy - it's just, just beautiful." She hesitated. "You don't understand me, do you?"

Elia shook her head. "No, I think not. Martial talk has always gone above my head though I commend your fascination and your eagerness to learn. The lady of a great castle must know how to command her men-at-arms as well as her women-in-waiting. She should be accomplished in all things."

"I assure you that I am accomplished in just the one thing."

"What would that be now?"

"Getting my own way."

"You remind me of a young girl near your own age. She is a great beauty, just as you are."

"A great beauty?" Lyanna snorted eloquently. "Who is she?"

"Cersei Lannister." Elia rose to her feet. "I have rested long enough. I will not inflict my ladies' presence on you though I hope you do not mind mine."

Lyanna shook her head, a smile as warm as summer slipping onto her face. "I like you," she said suddenly. "You're not like Catelyn who's so carefully sweet or Ashara who tries so hard to be charming. You're not sour or bitter like Lysa or Mariya. You're... kind."

"I have every reason in the world to be kind," Elia said. "I have everything in the world that I could possibly want." And nothing that I need. "What more could a woman ask for you?"

yanna threw her a shrewd look. "I do not know," she said. "I am not yet a woman grown yet though I might be tall enough to play the part. I do not know, my lady, but there seems to be something missing in your heart, good though it is." She curtseyed. "With your leave, Highness."

Elia nodded. "Enjoy yourself, Lady Lyanna."

"Oh I will," Lyanna said, smiling serenely over her shoulder with the confidence of a pretty girl who always wins. "I always do."


A/N: Yes, I know it's been nine months since the last chapter (odd seeing how fast I used to update!) but I'm been really, really busy with going to college and everything. I just brushed over the first few chapters to correct the typos everyone's pointed out - and added a few tiny ADWD references.

I know it seems too much of a good coincidence to put Maggy the Frog here but ASOIAF is so full of coincidences - Tyrion befriending the dwarf at Joffrey's wedding comes to mind! - and it was really just too good an opportunity to miss. And Maggy is Jeyne Westerling's great grandmother. Mariya Darry had three daughters and one son, among whom were Gatehouse Ami and Fat Walda whose dowry was her weight in silver.

This was sort of a filler chapter. And now the real fun begins! Next chapter stars Howland Reed and the Grand Tully-Baratheon-Stark-Arryn alliance!