Author's Note
I do not own Game of Thrones.
I apologise for the delay in this chapter being posted. Life's got pretty busy again, and I've been a little demotivated recently, so everything's ended up being pushed back and back.
On a happier note, after the last chapter this fic does now have over one hundred followers! A massive thank you to all of you for your support!
They moved on from Qohor to Norvos, travelling this time with a group of traders. Viserys continued to mope.
"Why do we keep him around?" sighed Daenara.
"He's family," replied Saeherys curtly. "Although sometimes I wondered that about you too sweet-sister."
Daenara stuck her tongue out rather childishly.
(and at night daenara dreamt of a bigger boy pushing a smaller one and a crushing lonely emptiness; jaemar dreamt of exhaustion and darkness; saeherys dreamt only of falling and crashing through the air)
Norvos was an odd city where everyone except the priests wore their hair shaven. Men had drooping moustaches, women painted their bald heads.
They were invited in by a few of the nobles a little half-heartedly. By now the last of the Targaryens were old news and people were more interested in other things, like politics, trade and the assassination of all but one daughter of Magister Thathkel of Myr's family.
"Huh, I wonder how that happened," said Daenara. Jaemar looked at her. She looked back.
"Daenara," he said. She shrugged.
"I've been here with you all the time haven't I?"
The feasts and soft beds and new clothes for them were much less these days.
Towards the end of their stay the Golden Company arrived. Viserys sold much of their remaining jewels to throw the captains a feast and plead for their help. It was embarrassing to watch.
Saeherys made conversation with the two men to her right, who seemed more amused than anything at the young silver haired girl, while Daenara tried to gently nudge the conversation to be a little more tactful and less demanding on their behalf. Jaemar though was interested in something more than the captains.
He was interested in the sword one of them was wearing.
It bothered him, nudging at the back of his mind, awakening blurry memories of endless hours spent performing drills, cutting through men and armies, a steady weight in his hand. Memories from another time, another life, when he flew through the sky and his sisters wore leather and silk.
Blackfyre.
The name whispered at the back of his mind and he knew it was right.
He knew he needed it.
He needed that sword.
He needed it more than he needed food and water and air and his sisters.
Daenara nudged him. "You're staring."
"I'm not."
"You are."
"I need that sword."
She looked, and she knew.
Her memories showed it in the hands of two wielders, one a worthy man and one less so.
Jaemar kicked his chair back. He needed that sword. This stranger had no right to it anyway! It was a Targaryen family heirloom; what was it even doing here? Had he stolen it, or been gifted it by one of their idiot ancestors or bought it after the Usurper drove them from Dragonstone?
He cared not.
He needed it back.
Daenara touched his arm.
"Don't."
"But-"
He wanted it.
He needed it.
He was craving it, it was his, and it was more than that.
Saeherys touched his other arm.
"Don't."
"But-"
"Aegon," murmured both girls.
Jaemar sat down.
The Captains laughed merrily and got steadily drunker throughout the night.
As did Viserys.
Drunk enough that their guard was down and child shaped shadows in the camp could be shrugged off as tricks of the imagination.
Viserys was in a black mood when they returned to their inn room. "Who do they think they are? When I have my crown, I will make sure they remember this."
He would never have that crown.
The triplets would guarantee it.
The following morning The Golden Company woke to find the Company Commander dead in his tent, his throat slit from ear to ear, and the Company's most prized possession gone from his side.
The Targaryen siblings fled from Norvos that day, and the Three Dragons' dragon's blood sang a little louder in their veins.[hs1]
They were on the streets for a very long time after that. The interest in them had all but ran out, and so had the money and jewels. At last they met with another Mummer's troop. Dragging Viserys with them, they joined up.
None of them would say it to each other, but all of them liked it. Once upon a time they had a life of finery and jewels, silk clothing and valyrian steel (which of course they may or may not have had again), this though, this was life and living.
They dyed their hair scarlet red while staying with the Mummer's troop. The dirt and sun of the road turned their pale skin brown. The only part they couldn't hide - the only part that looked like them - was their royal purple eyes.
Some days they didn't even recognise their own reflections.
Even now sometimes, as the life they once lived seemed to get further and further away with every hour and day and moon that passed, they felt an oddness deep within them, a yearning for the sky and a desire to be truly warm like they never seemed to be.
They grew from beautiful children into a pretty young man and beautiful young women, lithe and strong. Jaemar wore his dyed hair chopped raggedly at his chin; Daenara and Saeherys both wore theirs long, Daenara in plaits and Saeherys loose. They sparred daily, with each other and anyone else they could, though the sword that sang for Jaemar's hand remained wrapped in a blanket and stashed with his belongings. They couldn't risk others seeing it, recognising it. Only Viserys was unhappy and begged at the settlements and cities they stopped at to support him, to give him an army. For nearly three years they might have forgotten about everything, forgotten about who they were, what they once were, except-
At night Daenara dreamt of flying, of an inferno burning beneath her.
At night Jaemar dreamt of soaring through the air, of screams on the wind.
At night Saeherys dreamt of falling, tumbling through an endless hot sandy breeze.
(and they all dreamt of the creeping cold, of ice that moved over the land like a living thing, of the sea freezing in ripples and white monsters that walked on it like the ground, of huge creatures with rotting faces, and of dragons with decaying wings that breathed great torrents of white-blue fire)
"They're coming," Saeherys said. "We have to be ready."
They were not ready. They had no dragons, no army, no allies, no way to fight.
They would die in the endless cold.
And still they dreamt of the cold and snow, of blue-white lightning that illuminated the sky, of monsters that were living ice with hateful glowing eyes.
They woke cold in the mornings.