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The Victors

Breaking the Chains

Three days later…

Elia's face was drawn and yellowish, her eyes burned with fever – or concern? – but her hands were so very gentle as she stroked the babe's head at her breast. Alynna looked aside, the sight of another woman, even beloved Elia, nursing her own newborn was so hard to bear. She had always hated the first days and weeks of nursing – although her babies could usually drown in milk and her other breast was leaking almost as abundantly as the one she was nursing from at the moment, the beginning was always hard for her, her nipples cracked and the newborns often drew blood. But right now, she would give anything to feel this pain in the breasts, instead of that other pain.

"Don't worry," Elia said. "Your milk will come."

Alynna looked down at her own emaciated hands and wondered how she could not have foreseen that she was too malnourished to have milk. She had been so used to have enough to feed her babies that even the absence of the first milk before the birth hadn't got her thinking. "Do you think so?"

Her cousin smiled. "Of course. You just need to fatten up a little and… to leave King's Landing."

King's Landing, Alynna thought. King's Landing is a rapacious and traitorous place, as dangerous to me now as it is before, reaching to grasp what I love most… King's Landing is a snake! And they say that we Dornish are ones. Why did I come here again!

Elia smiled faintly. "Leave," she said again. "Go home and all we'll be fine. This isn't your place, Alynna. Neither yours nor mine. To us, there is only one place in the world – under our own sky…"

Alynna looked up at her and gasped in horror. Elia was crying, she saw, but the tears running down her cheek were not clear. They were scarlet. Elia's tears were blood.

"No!" Alynna screamed. "No!"

"What's wrong?" Elia asked, unaware that her face was changing. Her skin was blackening and shrinking, crumbling down, revealing white gleaming bones until all that was left of her face was the eyes weeping blood in the skull's face.

"Alynna! Alynna!"

She gasped and shook fiercely, her teeth clattering. Finally, the light of the candle at her bedside helped her remember where she was. A look at the window showed her that it was still the pitch of night. She looked at the man sitting at the edge of her bed and went limp in the strong arms holding her. "Oberyn," she murmured. "I was so scared…"

"I saw," he murmured back, holding her tight, and for a moment didn't say anything more, just held her, his familiar warmth comforting her.

Finally, she drew back and looked at the candle grooved to show what time it was. There were two hours until dawn. "When did you arrive?" she asked.

"Right now," he said. "We exchanged a few words with Uncle and retired… crowding in with some of the others but no one was killed, I assure you," he added.

She gave him a stern look and he was glad that his spirited cousin was returning to her usual self. "Oberyn," she said sternly.

"Really, it's nothing," he insisted. "We reached an understanding. Anyway, I was going down the hall when I heard you screaming." He paused. "What were you dreaming about?"

She laughed shakily. "I dream of different horror every night," she said and paused. "I should have never come here, Oberyn."

"I know," he agreed grimly. "Doran was right about this and I was wrong." He poured her a goblet of water and she drank. "But how were we to know that Rhaegar would be mad enough to chase after you? He never gave Elia this much attention, for sure!"

Alynna shivered in the hot night. "We went too far," she admitted. "Just as he was afraid we would. We should have just followed the original plan. No one is to blame but us. We got carried away."

"Doran anticipated this much," Oberyn agreed. "Damn his brains, he did expect that something like that might happen. Too many of us here. Hell, he doubted even Uncle and if I had to choose one of the family who would stay level-headed against the most challenging circumstances, I'd pick him. Well, we'll have to work with what we have. What's this nonsense about Arel?"

She sighed. "I have no idea. Looks like the Queen couldn't take it that Arthur was so shaken by almost killing my child that he returned Dawn. She decided that it was all about her. The rumour has it that she nagged at her husband until he caved in and decided to punish us and Arthur. They pulled Arel straight from dinner, for everyone to see."

"Witch," Oberyn said. "I hear that there is a string of maesters going through her chambers now?" he asked.

Alynna shrugged. "They can summon the whole Citadel if they must, and have the High Septon pray day and night to bring life to her cold womb. It won't change a thing."

He drew back, so he could have a better look at her, his expression curious. "Maester Tiboult was that good? He achieved it without anyone suspecting anything? How did he do it?"

She shook her head. "There was no need. Yes, when they had the audacity to require assistance from Starfall, my instructions to Maester Tiboult were to make sure that there would be no more children born to her. That was what we had agreed upon with Elia anyway. But it turned out that he didn't need to intervene. She took care of that herself. Giving birth so young has its complications by itself. And all the riding she had done did not help much. She had developed muscles that made the birth even harder. Too much blood. Too tight a womb. He was scared that if he tried to do something more, she would bleed to death or the fever would intensify – and my orders were that she lived."

For a moment, Oberyn stared at her, then burst out laughing at the irony of it. "More fool me," he said. "All this time, I thought…"

"I don't want to talk about the Stark girl," Alynna said firmly because to her horror, sometimes she felt sorry for the girl and she did not want that. "I want to get rid of Rhaegar! I want my husband back… and a few other things."

Oberyn stared at the window and out, into the night. "I'll try to give you what you want," he promised. "Fortunately, our hearts' desires have often coincided."

They fell silent then, so silent that the splutter of the candle could be clearly heard. It was now guttering and Alynna tried not to imagine that it was Arel's life that she was looking at – dying away in disgrace, in his best years, when they had finally found their peace and the pale flicker of happiness had returned to their lives. "Will you crowd in with me?" she finally asked. She was afraid to go back to sleep, yet her babe needed the rest.

As cruel as he was to the others, to the women in the family Oberyn was always attentive. "Of course," he said. "Ellaria sends her love," he added. "She wanted to come and take care of you. She made me swear an oath that I'd be nothing but kind, as much as it pains me," he added in the darkness and she chuckled. The only reason for Oberyn to come without his paramour could be that she was either unwell or with a child herself. Ellaria's gentleness did much to hide the steel inside but Alynna had seen it in those five years since the young Sand had become Oberyn's wife in all but name.

"Let me be your knight in shining armour," Oberyn added and started thumping her on the back when she choked, and then they laughed as they once had in the Water Gardens when they had been young and innocent, and then young and not so innocent but still optimistic, still full of hope.

The next day…

Arthur had been on his watch for an hour when Allyria appeared down the hall, accompanied by two other women. There could be only one place they could be going and he wished the Queen Dowager had warned him about their coming. After the near miss with little Ned, he had glimpsed Allyria a few times but her reluctance for any near contact was evident and he had respected her wish, although the distrust in her eyes and pose made him feel like she had dealt him a mortal blow. As to the other women, he had never been close to Lady Larra but Blackmont was close enough to Starfall and he had met her often as a child. Since Arel's arrest, his unwillingness to look his countrymen and women in the eye had turned into burning desire to run away as soon as he caught a glimpse of one of them. The last night of too much wine and too less sleep had done nothing to help his peace of mind. Maybe the Queen Mother would later invite him to a cup of tea. He quite liked sitting with the woman and talking to her – or keeping silent. She was a calming influence anyway, something that he had associated only with the old Lady Daella Gargalen – Princess Daella Targaryen, as she had been born. Just being with her brought him composure, to his great surprise. She became like this only after her husband's death, he thought. Or maybe she was always so but his treatment made this part of her go dormant. Shame burned scarlet on his cheeks at the thought of how often he had stayed guard at the slow killing of her spirit.

When the women came near, the blush went off his cheeks, taking all colour along.

He had often wondered whether he'd ever see her again. He had thought it might be easier if he didn't. But he had thought the same about Arel, Allyria even, and the moment he had first laid his eyes on them, he had felt like a dying man in the desert who had miraculously come to a well. Now he took Ashara in, every little change, everything that had stayed the same. She was a little plumper around the middle than he remembered, with a rounder face, her dark hair was modestly drawn back from her face instead of falling tantalizingly. She was still beautiful but she now looked more like a content wife than the sultry maiden men had been mad about. Of course, Arthur knew that she had recently given birth again and he had expected that she would be changed; but the fact that the changes were so many and surprised him so stung. I should have been there to see them happening, not registering them post factum. Ever since seeing Arel's son and, in the distance, the babe with her mother, her nursemaid, or Allyria, he had desperately wished to meet Ashara's children, as well. Not likely to happen. Now he realized why his foster father had been so angry with him taking the cloak. It had not been anger at Arthur, as he had been thinking for so long. Mikkel had been angry for Arthur, for everything Arthur had deprived himself of, although at the time, even he couldn't have known just how much Arthur would lose.

As they came near, Ashara's eyes met his, hot, burning with a sole question. Did you know? He looked aside, tortured and ashamed. He couldn't say no because he had known. He had known that Rhaegar would do something, although he had never thought that the King had it in him to act so coldly, so calculatingly. Arel's taking into custody had been executed in a way that would bring him greatest humiliation. Oh, Arthur knew it was politics but it didn't help his anger, his pain, his disappointment. I should have known. I could have, if only I wanted to. But he had never wanted to know the worst things about Rhaegar, or at least he had postponed learning them for as long as he could. That was the easiest way to keep his vow.

It all lasted less than a moment but his answer was clear. His sister's expression changed. Now, she was a stranger, distant and polite. She looked at Allyria. "Well, we're here. Go to the garden, and we'll come and take you on our way when the audience is over."

The girl nodded. "I might go back to our chambers before that, though."

Ashara considered this. "Very well. But take care."

"I will," Allyria promised when the door opened and the two women entered.

Now, she was alone with Arthur and stood frozen. He wanted to reach out for her and tell her that he was sorry for everything. But it wouldn't help. He had noticed the quick look she had given him when the gold cloaks had been leading Arel out. She had been pleading for him to intervene, to say something, to do something like the other Dornishmen had done. There had been men standing up and fists clenched before Arel himself had stopped the others, claiming that he had nothing to hide and was ready to go. And Arthur had stood by and watched. That was what he did. Always. Allyria had given him a chance – and he had squandered it away. She would not give him another one.

Take care, he wanted to tell her as he watched her retreating back. She was so small and slender against the red and black hangings. Take care. Ashara is right. We Dornish aren't loved around here right now. And this is not Maegor's Holdfast, with its isolation and security. He had seen more than one man staring or downright leering at Allyria, had heard the whispers of how passionate a bedmate she must be, with her beauty and Dornish blood. He wished someone had the daring to say it to his face, so he could introduce them to his sword. But even without Dawn, there was no one willing to risk his wrath.

He stood where he was and tried to overhear the conversation of the women inside. Not that he cared so much about what they said. He just wanted to listen to Ashara's voice.

The Queen looked years younger since the last time Ashara had seen her. No, the Queen Mother, she checked herself. There were tiny lines around her eyes and mouth that hadn't been there before but she was more serene, no longer a beautiful wilted flower but one in its bloom, with only a petal or two fallen. She was calm now and that changed her eyes, gave her entire face new glowing. That's the woman the Princess and I glimpsed from time to time, Ashara thought. She's now here fully.

The solar looked different from the one she had held as queen, too. More windows. More light. More trinkets showing a female touch. More colours. Through the open door, Ashara could see the children playing in the next room – two boys and a girl, all of different colours. The auburn-haired one held her eyes the longest. Do you know that you are a hostage, child, she wondered. Do you realize that your family and your mother miss you? She was surprised to realize how much of her hatred towards the Starks, toward Ned had melted away. How much she had become used to her new life, her own family. We all have started anew, she thought. Even the Queen. And I won't let anything spoil that, Rhaegar least of all. He had his chance with Elia and now he's trying to ruin Arel's life. Not going to happen, Your Grace. Not going to happen.

She felt the Queen's eyes on her and smiled dutifully.

"It's quite different here from what you were used to when you lived here before, right?" Rhaella asked.

Ashara reached for a small trifle and bit at it, vowing that it'd be her last for all week long. "Oh yes," she said. "King Maegor and us, we've parted company."

Rhaella and Larra both laughed. "Oh I've missed you," Rhaella said. "I've missed some Dornish wit as of late. Your brother, for all his makings, makes a poor substitute," she added, looking at Ashara inquiringly. She didn't miss the way the young woman's face closed all of a sudden and sighed. She had expected that Ashara would be angry but for Arthur's sake, she had hoped that she'd be able to put it all in the past. Maybe she would have been if the wretched thing with Lord Dayne hadn't happened. If Rhaella had known what her son intended, she would have locked him in his bedchamber until his anger cooled off!

"You look so young and beautiful, dear," she said. "Time has stopped for you."

"If only," Ashara said. "Children are great joy for a mother's heart. Not much so for her looks."

"Don't I know it," Rhaella muttered. "How many have they become, four?" she asked, knowing very well that they were.

Ashara had come here with a purpose but the Queen was so welcoming. She had always felt good in her company. Surely there was nothing wrong to talk about her children a little?

For a while, the three women discussed the joys and sorrows of bringing up young ones. Rhaella rose and brought a fine wooden box, enameled with scenes from Aegon's conquest in bright colours. The dragons looked so real that for a moment, Ashara hesitated to place her hand over them. "That's for your children," Rhaella said. "A small token of my esteem… as well as Elia's," she added softly.

Ashara fought to keep her tears from falling. The memory of her time with Rhaella and Elia suddenly rose to life as it hadn't in years. Those afternoons she'd never forget that they had filled with silence, talks about deeper things, and sometimes merry chats, always overlaid with the fear of seeing the door open and the gaunt figure of the King coming in.

"Thank you, Your Grace," she said and while Rhaella was giving Larra another, smaller box, Ashara could not help but think that it was not right. Elia would have never given her a box with Targaryen motives. She might have been obliged to carry the Targaryen name but she had never considered herself one. Maybe if she had, she would have been able to capture Rhaegar's heart. Or maybe not. Maybe he had been sinking too deep before he ever met her.

Ashara looked at the Queen. "Your Grace," she said. "I know you have influence over the King."

All of a sudden, Rhaella blushed a little. "People always exaggerate," she said.

"No." Ashara shook her head. "I remember it from the time I lived here."

Rhaella smiled sadly. "Many things have changed since you lived here, Ashara."

Was it possible? Could Rhaella's relationship with her son have deteriorated now in their good days when it had been so close in their bad ones? Ashara kept insisting, "But there must be a grain of this influence left." She sighed, the fears she had suppressed for so long coming to the surface. "What happened to my brother… it was a terrible mistake, Your Grace. Help us remedy it."

Rhaella gave her a long considering look. In the silence, the children's shouts rang even louder. For all her sweet face and lovely curls, Princess Daenerys outvoiced both her playmates. In the far end of the room, something huge and gleaming caught Ashara's eye. It looked… like an egg. A huge one.

"Do you know it for sure?" the Queen asked. "Do you know for sure it was a mistake?"

"I know it," Larra Blackmont said. "And I am the only one who does."

She leaned forward, her dark eyes intent, her face betraying a mix of reluctance and resolve.

"At the time the castellan disappeared, Lord Dayne was with me."

At first, Rhaella felt only immense relief. Lord Dayne wouldn't be sentenced. Relations with Dorne could still be mended. Then she realized that if it was so easy, the women wouldn't have come to her at all. "Is that so?" she asked reservedly, her mind leading her to the inevitable conclusion.

The Dornishwoman blushed but said it plainly. "My lady, Arel Dayne spent that night with me. We were a love couple." She sighed and suddenly looked very weary. "The realm knows you as a good woman and one of conscience. You must know that he'll never say where he was. He'll never tarnish my name to save himself."

"No," Rhaella agreed. "I imagine that he won't."

After all, Arthur would never do such a thing either. If the story was true at all.

"So, what you're saying is that you can bear witness where he was?"

The woman nodded. "I'll say it if I must. I cannot let an innocent suffer for the sake of my good name. But I'd rather not have it come to that." She leaned forward. "At the time, my lord father had already promised me to my first husband. He was not a bad man but his years were plenty and I could say that he wouldn't bring me joy in certain things. You're a woman, too, Your Grace, and I hope to your understanding."

Rhaella slowly raised her cup of tea and looked at her fingers, still fine and well kept, and then the rose-coloured ones of the other two women. Had she been young, ever? Sometimes, she thought her youth had ended up when she had turned fourteen, then she had gone to sleep and had woken up at thirty seven. Her first thought was to assure the two Dornishwomen that if it was so, if Lady Blackmont was telling the truth, Lord Dayne would suffer no injustice but bitter experience had taught her that life was never fair. Arel Dayne had to fight his corner with whatever he could find. "I'll talk to my son," she promised. "I'll tell him what you told me. And I'll try to keep your name out of public hearing. But I don't have any significant influence over his decisions. Truly."

"Thank you anyway," Ashara said. "I won't forget it."

She was about to say something more when a scream came through one of the opened windows – a shriek of mindless horror followed by another one that filled every one of the Queen's chambers. "That's Allyria!" Ashara yelled and ran for the door. Rhaella and Lady Blackmont followed, the Queen opening her mouth already to give Ser Arthur an order to leave his post and investigate what was going on.

He wasn't there. He had outrun all of them, headed for where Allyria's scream had come from.