Rhaenys
Looking down from the castle from atop the Great Keep, it was full of life. With Robb leading some off to go deal with the unruly Skagosi, servants were busy about the castle moving things and preparing for him to leave later that day.
Theon was staying, as was Daemon, who had to wed Lady Rhea while they were away. But Aegon would be leaving with Robb as well, as was Jon, who Rhaenys had been certain would've continued south.
And soon their guests from Dorne would be returning home as well, though leaving her mother behind, taking Daenerys with them. A princess for a princess, Rhaenys thought to herself.
Rickon had for a time been better behaved with Jon back, however that soon changed when he learned that both his brothers were going to be off to Skagos for a while. Rickon had pleaded with them to stay, or to take him with them, but in the end they refused.
And since then, Rickon had not even been willing to play with Casella, despite how close they were.
Rhaenys decided to descend from the top of the keep, making for her chambers that she shared with Theon. Neither Theon nor their children were there, she saw when she entered, and some servants had cleaned their room since last night.
She found herself remembering a conversation with her mother they had at their wedding. Rhaenys had asked whether her father would approve of Theon as her husband or not. 'Your father meant you for Aegon,' Princess Elia had told her, which she felt she shouldn't have been surprised by, yet she was.
Her brother was handsome, but Rhaenys could hardly picture herself with him, no more than she could picture herself as a septa. It would perhaps have been different had her father lived, but as it stood, she couldn't.
If she had wed Aegon though, she would've one day been queen she knew, which was a notion she had once loved. She would never be a queen anymore, Rhaenys knew, but the prospect of being queen had always excited her, and she wondered if that was why she had married Theon, whose father had once crowned himself king.
Perhaps if she had waited longer she might have been able to seduce King Robert, and get him to set his wife, Cersei aside. As a Targaryen she would lend her name to his rule, and Rhaenys was certain that the king would find her more beautiful than his queen.
But Rhaenys shook those thoughts aside, deciding it would be good to say her goodbyes, but as she was beginning to leave, she heard a knock on her door.
She expected that it would be Theon or Aegon, but when she opened the door she was surprised to see that it was Jon who stood outside of it.
"Can we speak?" Jon asked her in a hushed voice.
"Of course Jon," Rhaenys replied.
He closed the door behind him, and locked it, and for a moment Rhaenys felt her heart rising in her chest. She had noticed how Jon was even quieter and more sullen than he had been before now that he had returned, and the looks he always gave to everyone now, as though there was something he had to say. Whatever had happened to him at Castle Black had changed him, she realized, and perhaps it was not for the better.
Jon sat down next to her on the bed, and the two remained silent together for a moment, before Rhaenys choose to break the silence. "What happened at the Wall?" She asked him.
"I befriended a dwarf, defended a craven… And found this," he said, pulling the sword at his waist out of his scabbard, before he handed it to Rhaenys.
She studied the blade carefully. Only a few blades that she had ever seen were like this one, and she realized it was Valyrian Steel. She looked at the dragon-head pummel and knew at once the sword she held in her hands.
"Are you giving this to me?" Rhaenys asked for a moment. She wondered why Jon would, after all, she had never been trained at arms, and both Aegon and Daemon would be willing to carry it.
Jon shook his head silently. "Lord Eddard… He lied…"
Rhaenys felt unsure what he meant by that. "About what?" She inquired.
He paused for a while, before he finally spoke. "He's not my father," Jon finally said.
"How?" Rhaenys asked, feeling more confused now.
"He lied to protect Jeyne… To protect me… To preserve a woman's honor," Jon explained.
Rhaenys realized he wasn't going to directly tell her, but thankfully the riddle was not so hard to solve. "You're… Lyanna's son, by Prince Rhaegar… by father?" She asked him, and got a nod back.
After setting Dark Sister on the bed, she gave her brother a hug, which seemed to put Jon somewhat at ease. "I'm proud to be your sister," she whispered in his ear, knowing that was what he wanted to hear.
When they broke apart, she looked over Jon, and she could see no trace of herself or her brothers in Jon, but it didn't matter.
"Jeyne as well?" She asked.
"No," Jon said quietly.
Oh, Rhaenys thought to herself. She saw the look on Jon's face, with the uncertainty that was on it, a look she always had seen on Aegon's face when he was unsure about things. She had watched Jon and Jeyne growing up, and could hardly imagine what it must be like for Jon to have learned he wasn't twins with Jeyne. Sometimes it seemed Daemon and Aegon couldn't be any more different, but for them to not be twins seemed an absurd notion to Rhaenys.
"What will you do?"
Jon considered the question for a moment, seeming uncertain about the question that she had asked him.
"I was going to keep going south… To Raventree Hall… But Robb has a need of me now. I promised him that I would go to Skagos with him," he said.
Rhaenys thought to herself for a little while as to what to say, wondering what would help ease Jon's feelings. "Jeyne won't be like to go far from there. She can wait a little longer."
It didn't seem to settle him very well, but it was the best she could manage to say. "Come, let us break our fast together," she finally said, pulling Jon up from the bed.
Jon placed the Valyrian Steel longsword back in it's scabbard, before he rose to walk with her. The walk from the keep to the great hall was not terribly long, and they moved together, arm in arm.
When they arrived, they seated themselves at the table, while Rhaenys noted Princess Myrcella was taking her leave of the hall.
They both ate together, while Rhaenys noted others had not taken much note of them together. Theon was busy eating with the children.
"Do Aegon and Daemon know? Or Robb?" She finally asked him as she was nearly finished eating.
Jon shook his head. "I wasn't sure who to speak to about it first… I thought you would understand."
Rhaenys nodded. "You should speak with them, then… Perhaps not today, but soon."
She wondered if she should tell her mother, and how she would feel about it. To her memory, she had never expressed disdain towards Lady Lyanna, though she wondered if that might have been because they were in Winterfell.
Rhaenys left Jon, going over to her mother and Aegon, who had Casella too, while Jon left the hall.
For a moment she considered if she should tell them, but she decided not too. It was for Jon to tell them, not her, and she certainly could not tell them now in the crowded hall.
As she looked at the three of them she smiled, considering the thought that this was her mother standing with her son and granddaughter, yet the three of them could not have looked any more different.
She joined with them, as they walked through the castle. Rhaenys barely listened as Aegon was speaking to their mother about Daemon's wedding.
It made Rhaenys wonder who her brother would marry. She had married a Greyjoy of Pyke, and Daemon would marry a Royce of Runestone, so surely Aegon would find his way into a good match as well, but the question of who seemed uncertain to her.
Eventually she grew tired of their talk, and looked as men were beginning to prepare to depart from the yard.
Rhaenys broke from their party, and walked towards the main courtyard where she looked for Jon. She spotted Princess Myrcella was speaking to Robb, while mounted, and ultimately found Jon as he was saddling his horse.
"Goodbye Jon," she said to him, offering him a hug that he took.
"Goodbye," he whispered to her in his ear.
She watched as her brother began to mount his horse, and before long he was riding off into the distance, leaving Rhaenys alone again.
Rhaenys began to wander the castle alone, wondering what she had to do today. She decided to pay a visit to Lady Catelyn's Sept.
The Sept was not that large, and Rhaenys had scarcely prayed to the Faith of the Seven, especially after she had married Theon, who kept the Drowned God of the Iron Isles, but she decided she would today. She stood before the candlelit altar of the Warrior, praying for her brothers, praying that they would be given strength by the gods. Or God, Rhaenys thought, as she had been taught the seven were not seven different gods truly, but seven aspects of the same god.
When she had finished before the altar of the Warrior she moved to the altar of the father. The face carved on the altar seemed to change as she looked, and she watched as the face seemed to move as she thought about men she prayed for. She prayed for her father, Prince Rhaegar, for Lord Eddard in King's Landing, for Robb whose Princess was with child, for Daemon who she didn't doubt would soon be a father himself, and countless others.
Rhaenys knelt there, waiting patiently, before she heard another figure enter. When she turned around, it was her mother there, Princess Elia, who had come to the Sept alone.
"Mother…" She said, her voice wavering as she did.
Her mother walked up next to her, and knelt next before the father beside her. She prayed silently with her head bowed for a little bit, and Rhaenys did the same.
She was not so sure what she was praying for now, but she prayed anyways, until her mother began to rise.
"What do you pray for mother?" Rhaenys asked her mother as they began to exit the Sept.
"For you, your brothers and your children most of all…" She said. "And my own brothers in the south, and their children too…"
"Do you ever pray for father?" She asked curiously. For years Rhaenys had wondered if her mother did, though she had never been able to ask her until now.
Mother gave her a sad look. "Sometimes… Though he does not trouble my thoughts as much as he used to."
"Truly?" Rhaenys asked. She didn't know what she had been expecting, and she wondered if she would've been shocked no matter what her mother said, but it didn't matter.
"He prayed for you and your brothers all the time," Princess Elia told her, which wasn't particularly surprising. "After your father died on the Trident, most my days were spent praying for you, that the King would allow us to make for Dragonstone with Queen Rhaella and Prince Viserys, but he had refused. He blamed my uncle for his son's death, and wanted to keep us close. When Lannister men began to attack the city, I took us to hide in the one place I thought they would never look for a woman of my status, the Godswood, which was where Lord Eddard found us."
Rhaenys looked at her mother, feeling as though something had glazed over her eyes. Neither Lord Eddard or her mother had never said how they had survived during the Sack, though both had said that Lord Tywin had sent men looking for her, that had attempted to kill them.
"Surely grandfather was not such a great fool as to think you had committed treasons against him," Rhaenys said, wondering how truly mad he had been.
Elia let out a little laugh. "There was some truth to it… I had betrayed him after a sense. Though I hardly lost the Battle of the Trident."
"How did you betray him?" Rhaenys asked, feeling more curious than anything.
"When… When Ashara learned she was with child, I had her sent back to Sunspear before the king could know how she had paid visits to a traitor. Lord Stark's bastard son, Jon, isn't truly his… He's Ashara's, I am certain." Her mother explained.
"What.. Oh…" Rhaenys began to say before it dawned on her what had happened. Lady Ashara had snuck to the Black Cells, and paid visits to Lord Eddard's brother Brandon, and gotten with child by him. They were Jeyne's parents, Rhaenys realized, though she remembered what Jon had told him, that he was father's with Lady Lyanna, and wasn't sure whether or not to tell her mother. She seemed certain in her belief that Jon was the son of her friend, but didn't know know the truth, leaving Rhaenys unsure whether to laugh or not.
"Why… Why didn't you tell him?" Rhaenys finally managed to ask.
"I knew your grandfather. I knew what he would do to her and her child if he found out, and so I made sure he never did," her mother answered. Rhaenys remembered hearing of Lady Serala of Myr from Ser Barristan, who after the Defiance of Duskendale had her womanly parts removed on the orders of her grandfather.
Such a fate would've awaited Lady Ashara too then, if the King had ever found out she realized.
She was about to say more, when suddenly Aegon stepped into the Sept, nearly out of breath. He had been running, Rhaenys noted, looking for them perhaps, as he waited a moment before he realized they were not praying.
"Mother… Rhaenys… If I do not disturb you, pray come with me. You will wish to see what Lady Myrcella found," he said.
Rhaenys and Elia shared an uneasy glance with one another, before Rhaenys stood up, and began to follow her brother, to see what the Princess had found.
Author Notes:
Wow! Two chapters in a day.
It's been a while since I last did that… I actually finished four chapters today (which just so happen to have been Catelyn III, this chapter, and the next two chapters), however I'm gonna blow my load by releasing all four at once.
So according to my outline, this is the last Rhaenys chapter in the Return of Dragons, until the very last chapter, so you aren't going to be reading from her POV again for a long time.
Also, I currently have 12 finished chapters that I have yet to publish, and with this, there's 31 published (serious) chapters, which means that we're actually over half-way there if things stand as I have them currently (72 chapters total). And that's before getting into how the majority of those that aren't finished are at least started or works in progress.
Again, please leave your reviews, follows and favorites. They mean a lot to me.
Thanks for reading, as always.
ASOIAF by rights belongs to GRRM, and I am merely borrowing his lands to do my farming.