The changes had crept up on Sunspear over the course of many months. If I hadn't seen them before, I wouldn't have noticed. Though the distractions of the war made me notice later than I should have.
North of Dorne, Westeros was having an exciting time of it. Jaime Lannister had been captured. Tywin was dead with his army, feeding fish in a Westerlands river. And at this climax, with the Lannisters at his mercy, Robb Stark himself had been stabbed in the dark. The singers' stories said it had been the shade of Joffrey Baratheon. To the east, Stannis moved through the Reach like a thunderbolt. And further east still, other wars had come to the doorsteps of our old haunts in Essos. Word had arrived that the Golden Company had sacked Astapor. Good riddance.
Compared to the war-torn chaos around it, Sunspear changed subtly. Sunspear and its environs boasted no battles, nor deaths of kings, nor vengeful ghosts. But a quiet, familiar atmosphere had begun to strangle it.
It had started around the time that Oberyn had left for Essos, and I'd taken Arianne to visit Smaug. Arianne had been randy as a hyena in bed since we'd married. When she'd asked to see the dragon, I'd decided to reward her. Yes: I should have known better.
The worm was a charming raconteur when he wanted to be. That's something the Maesters forget, when they write about Smaug the Golden, the Terrible, the Impenetrable.
You'd approach Smaug on a hot day, while he was sunning himself. He'd crack an eye open, just enough to shield his eye from the salt breeze. A moment would pass. You'd feel like a child hoping your nurse would wake up and tell you a story. And if you brought a riddle as tribute, he'd indulge you, and tell tales while you ate blood oranges from "his" trees. Smaug loved to hear himself talk almost as much as he loved gold.
Arianne liked him. In those first months of our marriage, the Princess of Dorne showed an easy wit. She enjoyed playing monsters-and-maidens through Smaug's verbal mazes. It's the way I prefer to remember her: dark curls tossed back in laughter, trading riddles in Smaug's grove.
In those moments, I could almost forget the fact that Smaug had sited his grove under my sister's window. And across from mine. All the better to watch us, and frustrate attempts to move us to more distant quarters. Smaug was massive now; he dwarfed even his new hoard.
Even Doran, I heard, went to Smaug in nightly pilgrimages. What they talked about, I don't know. Perhaps they discussed revenge for Elia Martell, Doran's dead sister. Doran spoke of little else anymore.
Oh, there was poison beneath Smaug's stories, though you could never catch him out. I always came off as heroic by his telling. But that was the problem. I was always too heroic in Smaug's stories. He might as well have been describing Ser Viserys the Flawless, who shat sunbeams. You only had to cast an eye toward the actual Viserys, who startled at shadows, to know that Smaug was mocking me.
Doran's confidence in "protecting" Daenerys now seemed a sick joke. Daenerys was alive still, but only on Smaug's whim. Presumably, only until Smaug needed another blood ritual.
And as for my new wife...
As months passed, Arianne Martell's eyes took on an empty aspect. She wore less clothing, and demanded more in bed. I welcomed the change at first, until I recognized her hungry expression for what it was.
Arianne took to inviting Tyene Sand into our bed. The slut in question was one of the "Sand Snakes" - Oberyn's bastard daughter; Arianne's cousin. This, too, I allowed at first, since Tyene seemed comely and soft-spoken. Soon I found her domineering. Tyene was greedy with her pleasure, and when I slapped her for it during one of our sessions, she put a knife to my throat.
I forbade Arianne from consorting with Tyene. It availed little; I caught the knowing looks that Arianne and Tyene still passed, though jealous threats met with Arianne's denials.
Not that this stopped Arianne's nightly attempts with me. My nights had degenerated into hazes of sweat, and the stench of perfume on stained sheets. Scratches crisscrossed my back. After every performance, Arianne droned on in her deep, liquid voice. Arianne's passion and inventive mind only focused on one thing now. She'd fantasize aloud about the next position, or the next toy. She must have been rubbed raw. I certainly was, and I often wondered whether Arianne even felt pleasure from the act.
But I indulged her, in part because my nightmares had gotten worse. Three hours of sleep was a good night. Dreams of brimstone and scales stole the rest. Better to mindlessly rut while half-awake, and wake up to someone who had the same problem. And Arianne was warm.
That, and the inevitability of it all. I'd played this game before, and lost.
Soon, I was adding Dorne's peppers and strange spices to my meals, just so I could stay awake in the daytime. And alas, I was awake enough to see Doran stealing bleary glances at Smaug's courtyard. It had become a tic. Doran's gout had worsened, though he noticed it less. His hands had swollen into pink gloves.
Despite all that, I didn't see the inevitable coming.
I'd spent a long day at the docks. Oberyn had just returned from his sojourn in Essos, and I'd tried to relax by watching Oberyn's men unload his ship. The wares of Essos twinkled in the setting sun; most of them, I assumed, were tribute for Smaug. There were crowns; green jade; a six-foot horn banded in red gold; swords; a ceremonial warhammer nearly the size of a man, inlaid in silver; and much besides. Walking behind Oberyn, men with blue lips alighted on the Dornish shore.
I greedily drank my wine, and inhaled the sea breeze until long after dark. Drink, after drink, after drink.
That night, I staggered home drunk. Arianne was moaning in our room, which meant that the horny bitch had started without me again. Not that I was complaining; I was so tired.
I opened the door, and squinted through the oil lamps' light at movement on our bed. Up. Down. Up. Down.
"Arianne?" I grunted. "Sweetling-um..."
I burped quietly and tried to steady my stomach before staggering further into the room. I squinted. Even through a muzzy curtain of wine, I soon realized why Arianne's breasts were bouncing.
Pretty boys have always been my weakness, Arianne had told me once. Especially the dark and dangerous ones.
"K-gah...W-what...?" I said. "...are you...?"
The man underneath Arianne was a muscular brute with a neat black beard. It's possible I'd seen him around the palace once. He and my wife gave me the same look of surprise.
Arianne recovered first. She twitched her hips and gave me a sheepish little smirk.
"Ah, Husband," she said. "Join us?"
You know what I thought about, in that moment? What I saw in my mind's eye?
I saw the same scene that I'd angrily imagined for months in Drogo's khalasar, which wouldn't leave me alone. Buzzing, buzzing at the edge of my awareness. Khal Drogo fucking my sister.
"Who...?" I said.
Arianne waved her hand airily, and shook her head.
"He's...nobody, Husband. Come to bed with us. It will be fun."
Twitch.
That imagined scene again: Khal Drogo and Daenerys. My sister. My potential wife and sister. A big muscled ape fucking my sister. Fucking, and pounding, and pounding, like the blood hammering in my skull.
I saw red.
"Smaug!" I screamed. "SMAUG!"
A deep growl shivered the glass panes.
The lovers' smirks fell in an instant. Arianne's languid pose tensed. The insolent mass of muscles struggled out from under my wife, babbling - I don't remember what. He fell to his knees where he belonged, a nobody, hands up, placating, but with Arianne's smell still on him. Arianne was shivering, clutching a sheet to her chest like a shield.
"No!" Arianne said. "I-Viserys...Your Grace - You weren't here, and, and Tyene wasn't - I thought we could - it was only another idea for when you-"
Smaug's wings thudded in the air behind me. They held Smaug aloft like a monstrous, twisted hummingbird. Smaug tore the window pane out. It crumpled like parchment. Wind shrieked through the room, tipping candles and wrenching tapestries. The whole scene seemed to glow with the sickly yellow reflections in Smaug's eyes.
Men shouted down in the courtyard. Whatever they were saying, I was past caring.
I swayed with the wine, and pointed.
"You..." I said. "You both. I'm going to-"
A sound like I'd never heard before cut through everything.
It sounded like a thousand souls screaming. The sound touched you; it seared through skin and bones. Later, I would learn that the man who blew that note had burned his lungs to soot.
Smaug's own scream a second later shook the masonry. He spun backward, pinwheeling through the air like a bird hit by a crossbow. Smaug crashed to the ground. He writhed, tearing up man-sized clumps of turf. Grabbing his own chest.
He breathed a geyser of fire a hundred feet into the sky.
I looked beyond Smaug. From the window, I could barely make out the shape of Oberyn Martell, standing beside a dying man and a huge golden horn.
