Disclaimer: I don't own ASoIaF/GoT.

Thanks, I'm glad everyone is enjoying this and liked the interlude! Interlude 2, showing events during the Rebellion itself, is also written and will be posted soon enough.

Chapter Fourteen

Aliandra II

The Red Keep: May 20th, 298 AC

Her father had been arguing with the council again. Lia could see it on his face when he came to table, late again, as he had been so often, if he came at all. He hadn't for the first two weeks.

The first course, a thick sweet soup made with pumpkins, had already been taken away by the time that Oberyn strode into the Small Hall. They called it that to set it apart from the Great Hall, where the king could feast a thousand, but it was still big enough for two hundred to eat together comfortably.

"My lord," Mother said when Father entered. She rose to her feet, and everyone else rose with her, the guards' new uniforms gleaming.

Each man wore a new cloak, light orange wool with a border of gold and red satin twisting in and out of each other. Beneath the cloaks they had tunics of orange cotton and brown breeches tucked into black leather boots. The crest of House Martell was on one breast, the symbol of the Hand on the other. Another hand of beaten gold clutched the woollen folds of each cloak and marked their wearers as men of the Hand's household guard. There were only about eighty of them, plus the family, so most of the benches were empty. Lia had gathered that the people of King's Landing thought it was rather a lot of guards to bring, but she felt much safer, knowing that the men protecting her family were Dornish and loyal to the Martells, not the lions who had slaughtered her mother's family.

"My lady," Father replied, grasping Mother's fingers to kiss her palm as he took the seat beside her and waved for everyone to re-seat themselves.

"Be seated," he ordered.

"Forgive us for beginning without you, Husband," Mother murmured as they sat back down. "We were uncertain if you would be able to join us this evening."

He dismissed her apology, grabbing her fingers to press a kiss to their tips. "No, you did the right thing. What a relief it is to me to see that being in this city has not stolen your sense from you, my lady. It seems to have done so for everybody else in this place." He signalled for the meal to resume. The servants began bringing out platters of ribs, roasted in a crust of garlic and herbs.

Mother gave a dry smile. "I have experience with this place, my lord," she responded. "I know the right tricks to keep your sanity." She glanced at the serving girl who had just put down her platter with a smile. "Thank you, Clarisse, and some more water please. The babe seems to have developed a distaste for wine."

"Yes, milady, right away," the maid curtsied and scurried off with Mother's empty goblet.

Lia watched, troubled, as her father gave her mother a tender, concerned look and leaned in to whisper something into her ear, prompting Mother to smile and reply softly, shaking her head. Was their affection truly genuine? Lia wondered for the millionth time. It appeared to be so, but how could her mother love the man who had killed the goodbrother she loved? The man whose sister had seduced said goodbrother into abandoning his lawful wife? The longer she dwelt on the matter, the more troubled Lia became.

"The talk in the yard is that we are to have a tourney, my lord," Daemon stated as he speared a rib. "They say that knights will come from all over the realm to joust and feast in honour of your appointment as Hand of the King."

Lia could see that neither her father nor her mother was very happy about that, their previous pleasure disappearing at the mention of it. Father scowled outright in irritation, whilst Mother's lips thinned in disapproval.

"Do they also say this is the last thing in the world I want to happen?" Father huffed. "I hate tourneys. Have for years." His expression was dark.

Lia could guess what had turned him against tourneys, when she had heard of his reputation for jousting and even fighting in the melee when he was younger. He had competed in a dozen, been champion more than once, yet he had suddenly stopped competing in them around the time of the war's beginning. So many things led back to Harrenhal, it seemed. Perhaps the rumours were true, and the place really was cursed.

Despite their parents' unhappiness, Mariah's eyes had grown wide as plates. "A tourney," she breathed. She was seated between Lady Vaith and Sarella, three seats away from Lia. "Will we be permitted to go, Father, Mother?"

"I do not think so, Mariah," Mother frowned. "Tourneys are useless wastes of money. Men bloodying themselves for temporary glory and coin they usually end up spending within the week. I do not like the thought of you girls seeing them, they can be very dangerous. Some of the things that occur are not a fitting sight for the eyes of somebody your age."

"I agree with your mother," Father nodded. "It seems that I must arrange Robert's games and pretend to be honoured for his sake. That does not mean that I must subject my children to this ridiculous waste of time and coin."

"Oh, please," Mariah pouted. "I want to see. I have never been to a tourney before."

"And for good reason," Mother answered.

"I want to go as well," Lia added. "I want to watch them jousting, please Mother." She did not look at her father, fixing her gaze imploringly on Mother instead. She knew that they noticed, and her parents exchanged quick looks with one another.

"I want to participate!" Lewyn said eagerly, only to pout when his suggestion was immediately shot down by both parents at once.

"Please can we go?" Meria begged, even deigning to give an imploring look to Father. As always, he began to hesitate when Meria spoke in favour, though Mother maintained her unyielding expression. Father could never deny Meria anything, so Lia knew that they almost had him with her support. "Just this once, just to see what it's like."

"I would like to go as well," Dorren added thoughtfully. "'tis one thing to read of tourneys, and another thing entirely to see one with your own eyes. I am curious, after everything that I have read of them."

Sarella too voiced her desire to go and watch. It was rare for all of the Martell children, each with a different personality and different interests, to be united in their desire to do something, and Lia could tell that it was making their parents hesitate. They had good parents, she knew that well despite her current upset with her lord father. It was rare that they were denied something they truly wanted, though sometimes they might be forced to compromise.

Lady Vaith spoke up, sounding reluctant. "All the ladies of the court will be expected at a grand event like this, milord, my lady, and as the tourney is in his lordship's honour, it would look queer if your family did not attend."

Their parents looked pained, but Mother gave a reluctant nod.

"Myriame is right, Oberyn," she sighed. "The royal family will be insulted should we fail to make an appearance."

"I suppose that you are correct," Father conceded with a deep crease between his brows. "Very well, I shall arrange a place for all of you."

Mariah clapped in excitement, the boys spoke with enthusiasm and Dorren and Sarella began telling stories they had read of previous tourneys to the eager children.

"Will you be wanting to compete also, my little Kelpie?" Father leaned over to speak teasingly to Lia with a grin. "You can always join the races on Aeolus, if you desire. Gods know that nobody can outrace you on any regular steed, let alone him."

Lia had always loved to ride, so much so that her mother claimed that she'd think she was born on a horse, had she not given birth to Lia herself. Her father had started calling her a kelpie, for the legendary Rhoynish creature, a horse-shaped creature that lived underwater, when she had, at six, scared the life out of her family by riding bareback and alone to the beach. She'd been found galloping through the shallow part of the water by some guards, and the spanking she had earned as punishment for running off had left her with a red bottom for a full day.

And, as a reward for her skill, her mother had had a unicorn imported from Skagos, a mare named Snowflake for her. Snowflake had later born the first sand unicorn, Aeolus, after a sand stallion had hopped the fence into her field. Aeolus had grown twice as quick as a regular unicorn, which was already faster than any normal horse, and was endowed with the best qualities of both sides of his heritage. His birth had started a new business for House Martell, with multiple unicorns and various breeds of horses being purchased by them in order to breed the new animals with each other and sell them, causing a boom in their exports. Aeolus, meanwhile, had been given to Lia in Snowflake's place, as the unicorn mare was needed for breeding. Lia adored him, took care of him herself, and never went a day without riding him if she could help it. She had entered on him in three races during various celebrations since her parents had deemed her old enough to do so, and won each of them.

She glanced at her father, seeing him waiting for her response, a hint of something she could not quite decipher in his eyes. Hurt at her continued coldness to him? Hope that she might accept this particular olive branch where she had refused the previous ones? She knew that she was hurting him by ignoring his attempts to reach out to her again, but she couldn't stop thinking of what had happened to Aunt Lyanna and how it was all down to him, his best friend and sister.

Not even a full year ago, she would have grinned right back and insisted that she could easily outrace any opponent she faced. Then he would toss his head back and laugh loudly, while Mother gave a fond sigh and bemoaned Lia's tomboy nature. But Lia always knew from her expression that, while it truly did frustrate her mother, Aly still loved and accepted her in spite of it. Maybe even because of it.

But this was not a year ago, and Lia felt her stomach twist itself into a tight knot when she looked at her father. She turned to her mother instead, not replying to him.

"Mama, my head hurts," Lia complained softly. "Might I be excused early to go and lie down?"

"Do you feel sick my love?" Mother frowned in concern as she turned away from where she had been scolding Arron for neglecting his vegetables, reaching out to press a hand to Lia's forehead to check for a fever. "Very well then," she said after confirming that there was none. "Go and rest, my darling desert she-wolf. I will come and check on you in a while, alright? Or would you like me to come with you? Do you feel as if you will swoon?"

Lia shook her head, ignoring the feel of her father's eyes on her. "No, Mama," she murmured. "I just want to lie down."

"Alright, sweetling," Mother kissed her forehead. "I will come as soon as I have finished eating. I shall ensure that the others are quiet heading to bed tonight, so that you can have some peace."

"Thank you Mother," Lia replied. She rose, curtsied and said goodnight to everyone (still careful to avoid meeting her father's eyes) and then fled the hall, relieved that he had not intervened to make her stay and converse with him.

He acted as if he was a good person, as if he cared and loved Mother but it was a lie. It had to be, otherwise he would not have yelled at her. He pretended that Aunt Elia had been a good person as well, but that was a lie as well. He had admitted to Mother that Elia had gone willingly, so clearly she was not the good woman that he claimed she was. So many people had died because of her selfishness, and Mother had lost all of her siblings except for Uncle Ned. Even though he lived, she had still lost him too in a way, because she'd been forced to marry Father. And their marriage had not been to mend the ties between the realm as they had been brought up to believe but to have a hostage to force Uncle Ned to stay in line.

Her footsteps gathered speed as she made her way to her bedchamber, tears stinging at her eyes at the thoughts that raced through her mind.

Father was a liar and terrible and she hated him!

Her bedchamber was the only place save Aeolus' stable that Lia liked in all of King's Landing, and the thing she liked best about it was the door, a massive slab of dark oak with black iron bands. When she slammed that door and dropped the heavy crossbar, nobody could get into her room, not Mother or Lady Vaith or any of her siblings or her lying father, nobody! She slammed it now.

She went to the window seat and sat there sniffling, hating her father fiercely, and wishing she could turn back time to before she had overheard that damned conversation. Wishing that she could go back to thinking that her father was the best, most honourable man alive and she didn't doubt his love for Mother, or Mother's for him. Lia looked out of the window, dreaming of climbing out of it and going to the stables, saddling Aeolus and riding all the way back to Sunspear. She wanted to go home, not stay in this awful place where her kin's murderers profited from their deaths.

A soft knock at the door behind her turned Lia away from the window and her dreams of escape. "Lia," her father's voice called out. "Open the door. We need to talk."

"Go away!" she cried. "I don't want to talk to you, ever!"

"Aliandra," it was Mother's voice this time. "Let us in right now, young lady. You are a daughter of House Martell and House Stark. You will obey your lord father and not speak to him in such a disrespectful manner. Now open the door."

Suddenly furious, Lia jumped to her feet and stormed over to let them in. She glared at her father mercilessly when she opened the door.

"Leave me alone!" she hissed at him. "I hate you!"

"Lia," his voice had softened a great deal once she opened the door. "May we come in? Please?"

Her jaw was clenched, but she stepped to the side and allowed them entrance before snapping the door shut again. She stormed back to her bed and through herself face down on it, hugging her pillow tightly. She stiffened when she felt the mattress sink as her parents sat down on either side of her, and growled in anger when she felt her father rest his hand on her back to rub it. She deeply resented that it was as comforting as when she was a little girl, upset over one thing or another.

"Lia," Mother sighed tiredly. Beneath her anger, Lia felt a jab of guilt at contributing to her mother's weariness. "Why are you so angry with your father?"

"Because he is a liar!" she hissed, not removing her face from her pillow. She felt her father's rhythm falter at her words.

"I have never lied to you, or any of your siblings," Father insisted.

She sat up, twisting to glare at him and feeling her eyes itch from the tears in them. "Yes you did!" she exclaimed. "I heard the argument between you and Mother a few moons before the king came to Sunspear. You lied to us, the whole realm, about what happened to Aunt Elia! You said that she was a good woman, that Rhaegar kidnapped her, but I heard you admit to Mother that she ran away! And I heard you arguing about what happened to Aunt Lyanna and her children! I know what they did to her and her babes, and to Aunt Barbrey, Melara and Uncle Benjen! It was awful, and even though you are the king's best friend you have done nothing to gain justice for it!"

Her parents had both paled, Mother looked stricken and Father looked as if he had just been slapped. Lia continued to rant, feeling as if she were a fountain that had been blocked and was now overflowing. It felt good to at last get everything off of her chest. Freeing.

"And the king wanted to display their bodies!" she exclaimed. "Display them! And you always said that he was a good person, an honourable one, but that's a lie! You're a liar! I hate you! I hate you! I wish you had died during the war, that way I would not have been born and have to live with the shame of being your child!"

Father physically recoiled at that, and Mother's expression went from shocked to stern. Lia felt a tendril of guilt unfurl within her chest, but not enough to take back her words. She lifted her chin defiantly, tears still stinging her eyes.

"That is enough, Aliandra," Mother said stonily, jaw locked. She turned to Father. "My love," she murmured, reaching out to squeeze his hand. "Allow me to deal with this."

He hesitated, but eventually nodded, seeming to have aged a dozen years since Lia had had opened her mouth. He rose from the bed, looking pained. Lia crossed her arms over her chest and looked away, refusing to meet his gaze, though she felt it fixed on her.

"I love you dearly, Lia," he said softly. "Even if you loathe me, I always will. I-I am deeply sorry that you overheard that argument."

"I am not," she responded coldly. "I'd rather know the truth, not the lie you told to make yourself look better."

He flinched at that, and left without another word.

Mother sighed, and stood. "Come over to your vanity, Lia," she ordered. "Your hair is tangled. We need to braid it before you go to bed."

Quietly, feeling guilty at the fatigue in her mother's eyes, Lia obeyed. They were silent for a while, her mother gently running the brush through her curls and undoing the knots, careful not to pull Lia's hair and cause her pain.

"What of that argument did you hear?" Mother finally asked.

"I heard you crying, and Father confessing that Aunt Elia ran away with Rhaegar, and him chiding you very harshly, ordering you not to speak against the king or his sister again," Lia muttered.

"I see," Mother replied. "So you did not hear me call your father's sister a homewrecking whore, or his oldest and dearest friend a child butcher?"

"No," Lia admitted, slightly shocked. "But it was not as if you were not speaking the truth."

"Oh, I agree," Mother assured her, placing down the brush and beginning to pull Lia's hair into a braid for sleeping. "But whatever my opinions of the pair, your father loves them. My opinion of them is based on the pain they caused me, whilst your father's opinion of them is based on their childhood. He loves them, and to think badly of the ones we love is something very painful for us all." She sighed, tying off the braid and having them move so that they sat facing one another on the window seat, wrapping Lia in a loose embrace.

"My darling, your father is a good man," she murmured. "He has always been very good to me, even before we cared for one another."

"He made you cry!" Lia protested stubbornly.

Mother gave a brief smile. "And I have slapped him and spoken very cruelly to him on several occasions," she responded. "But as a women, I am entitled to weep when my heart aches, whilst a man is shamed if he does so. Do not think I am not just as capable of hurting your father with my words as he can to me."

She reached out and stroked Lia's cheek softly. "Sweetling, you cannot go a lifetime with somebody without hurting them at some point," she informed her gently. "Human beings have tempers, we are prideful beings. Your father and I argue on occasion, that is simply a part of a marriage. The only way to avoid arguing with somebody entirely is if you never spend any time with them at all. I dearly hope you have a marriage like mine, where your husband respects you and treats you as an equal, instead of one where he only pays attention to you if he wants an heir. You have argued with your siblings many times, have made them cry before and vice versa. That does not mean you do not love them and they you, does it?"

Reluctantly, Lia shook her head, understanding her mother's point even if she didn't like it. "But why lie about Elia?" she pressed. "Father has always said that lying is wrong, but he did then."

Mother sighed again. "As I said, my love, your father loved, and still does love, Elia dearly. To me, she is the woman who ran off with my goodbrother whilst my sister was not yet recovered from childbirth. To him, she was his only sister whom he treasured dearly. When the Rebellion began, he genuinely believed that she had been abducted. He did not know Rhaegar well enough to understand that he would never do such a thing. By the time that he learned the truth, she was dead and if he were to say anything, all it would do was besmirch her memory, something that is very painful to a person who has lost a loved one. He chose to allow her to remain pristine, instead of muddying it for what he considered to be no reason."

"The Sack-" Lia began to say, but Mother had a counter prepared for this as well.

"Your father had absolutely nothing to do with the events of the Sack," she declared firmly. "He arrived several hours after the Lannisters. In fact, Oberyn was the sole person to object to what happened, and push for the Lannisters to be punished. The Us-King, however, refused to listen. The man is lost in his own regrets and wine." Disdain flickered through her eyes.

"You said that you wished you had never been forced to marry him," Lia remarked softly, looking at her hands. "That you'd never have done it if your family's lives weren't on the line."

Mother grimaced. "I did not mean it when I said that," she stated. "Well, I would not have chosen to wed him, I admit that. Not then, anyway. But I do not regret our marriage, I promise. Even casting aside everything else, you and your siblings are everything to me, and if the only thing I am known for in the history books is being your mother, I can know that I lived a good life."

Lia chewed on her bottom lip. "Do you love Father?" she asked.

"I do," Mother didn't even blink in hesitation. "I confess, my love, it was not an easy thing to do. At first, I deeply resented, perhaps even hated, him. But I began to respect him quite quickly, due to the loving way he interacted with your elder sisters, and the effort he put into ruling Dorne. He struggled very much at first, as he had not been trained for it at all. But he put Dorne above his pride, he did his best for the kingdom. And he was very good to me. Our marriage was very tense at the start, I do not deny that. We had trouble, we argued a great deal. But many men would have beaten their wives bloody at the least when they acted as I did in our early years. Your father was always good to me. He never forced me, he only raised a hand to me once, when he was deep in his cups and only after I spoke negatively of Elia. He was horrified when he realized what he had done, and it took a long time for me to assure him that I had forgiven him for it. By the time of your birth, I loved him.

If your father has a flaw, my love, it is that he is a human, and thus is not infallible. He makes mistakes, as the both of us do. That does not make him a bad person."

"I thought he was perfect," Lia confessed, looking at her hands again. "The best man there is. And now I know that he is not, and I am angry with him for it."

Mother stroked her hair. "It is a hard lesson to learn, my sweet," she sighed. "But one that everyone must at some point. Parents are imperfect, and equally as capable of making mistakes as any other. That doesn't mean they aren't good people. That your father is as flawed as everyone else is certainly does not mean that he would not burn the world to the ground to protect you and your siblings. Half the reason that I fell in love with him is due to the love he bears all of you."

Lia nodded slowly. "I will apologize," she said softly. "I just-"

"It's alright, my love," Mother interrupted gently with a soft smile. "I understand, and your father will also. Just remember, my darling: when the cold winds blow, the lone wolf dies but the pack survives. You are a summer child, my love, as are your siblings. But Winter is Coming, and our family must be united in order to survive it."