Daenerys

Since she had arrived at Sunspear she had not left the main castle, and scarcely even left her chambers in shame. Now though, she had been summoned to the Prince's Solar.

Daenerys wondered if the Prince had finally discovered her secret, and how he would react to it. Surely he would break her betrothal to Prince Quentyn then.

As little as Daenerys wanted to marry Prince Quentyn, Robb was wed, so she couldn't marry him.

The Lord of Sunspear had not been very forthcoming with information about her betrothed, nor had Princess Arianne, save that the Prince had been summoned from Yronwood and would arrive soon.

It wouldn't do to ignore the Prince's summons though, she knew, and she could only hide for so long.

She wore a black and red silk dress in the colors of House Targaryen, as she walked down to the lord's solar. Somehow she managed to find her way there without any help.

The Prince was alone in the solar, and Daenerys closed the door behind her when she entered, and took a seat across from him at the desk.

"What have you summoned me for?" She asked him, and she saw there was a letter before him on the desk.

"You were raised by Lord Eddard…" He answered, and Daenerys felt uncertainty build.

"I was, my prince," Daenerys said.

"Well I bring grievous tidings I'm afraid. King Robert is dead, with Lord Eddard having been arrested for treason," Prince Doran told her.

Daenerys suddenly felt confused. Lord Eddard was many things, but certainly never a traitor. He would never betray his friend's son. And for King Robert to be dead… That seemed even stranger...

"Why? What did he do?" She asked, her voicing rising a little in panic. If King Robert was dead and Lord Eddard was imprisoned as a traitor, she wondered if perhaps it was because the Queen wanted him to turn Aegon and Daemon over. They might even demand her, she realized.

Daenerys had not forgotten the footpad she had stopped from killing Goren as he slept, the scars on her hands were reminder enough, ones that she could see whenever she turned them over, and would remain there forever most like. If the queen would go that far when she had been a guest at Winterfell, then she wouldn't be safe here in this foreign land for a certainty.

"That we do not know," he said. Daenerys for a moment thought that he might truly know, but if he did, he didn't seem to want to tell her. "I had thought to tell you sooner, but I did not know what to make of the news myself. It is said Lord Eddard's son and heir gathers his swords, to march against Lord Tywin."

She thought longingly about Robb for a moment. His name day must have passed by now, but he was still just a boy of five and ten, he couldn't face Lord Tywin on his own. "Can you help him?"

"Me? I do not know what I could give to support Lord Eddard I'm afraid. My body betrays me even now. I fear the days of me commanding great hosts and doing battle with forces are over," Prince Doran said.

"You need not lead men to war yourself. Your brother, Prince Oberyn, or some other lord… Please..." Daenerys started to say, feeling desperate. Robb won't forgive me if I fail him here.

The Prince only shook his head. "I am sorry Princess. But I cannot."

"There must be something you can do…" She insisted. "You command the power of Sunspear, even the threat…"

"They do not fear me, and they will not… On the day I returned here from the Water Gardens my name lost all its weight. Men may once have feared my wrath, but they know how weak I am now," Prince Doran said.

"If Arianne.. Or… Or… Oberyn…" Daenerys started, unsure what she truly meant to say before he cut her off.

"I am certain they would have Dorne go to war if they were in my place yes… Arianne… She would have better for her son… Yes… And Oberyn… He would go to war without a second thought… But I am the Prince, not them," he said. "Lord Eddard's son will not be fighting alone I am certain, and I do not think the Lannisters would wish to have a war with the queen's own good-son, no matter how he shames them."

"Could you call your banners… Send a letter to King's Landing demanding Lord Eddard's release…" She said. "You wouldn't even need to send men to war my lord…"

"Threats need fear behind them to have teeth. I have called my banners, yes, written to King's Landing, but there is little more that I can do," he told her.

Daenerys wondered if he had truly done that. She could not force him to do more, she realized, and he was just as she had been told. Her audience with him was at its end now she knew, and she took her leave of Prince Doran's solar.

She found herself wandering the Tower of the Sun aimlessly, without any true idea where she was going. Daenerys knew she ought to go back to Prince Doran, to plead her case or even hurt him if she had to, which she knew wouldn't prove to be difficult, or cry for the man who had raised her and those she had grown up with.

But instead, her mind was filled by the image of Robb as she had last seen him, when he was riding out to go deal with the Skagosi, mounted atop his grey stallion with his Greywind padding alongside him. He had returned safe from Skagos, she realized, and Daenerys was glad for that, but now he would be going to war with Lord Tywin, which seemed even more threatening.

She had been the one to give care to him after he had returned from that ride when he came back with Jon, and gave him her maidenhead that day. Him being in her had felt better than anything she had ever experienced, and she was certain that she had been able to give him great pleasure too, but now she wondered if she ought to have been ashamed about it.

Daemon was like to be riding off to war with him too, and Aegon, and Jon and all the rest. She wondered who else would be going, and of how many of them would die.

Daenerys was not sure what to think of Sunspear. She had been there for some time, yet it all seemed so strange. She had never left the North, rarely even going far from Winterfell for all her life, yet now she was on the opposite side of the world, in a strange land, with a strange people.

She had found some companionship with Prince Oberyn's daughters, the Sand Snakes. Each was a bastard, the first four by different mothers, and the younger four all by the Prince's paramour, Lady Ellaria Sand. She had gotten along well with Elia and Obella in particular, who were closest to her in age, while one of the older four, Sarella, wasn't even at Sunspear, though when Daenerys had asked the only answer she had gotten was that Sarella was away.

The food had been an entirely different matter though. Sometimes when Princess Elia had visited Winterfell, she had brought some Dornish foods North with her, that Daenerys had enjoyed. But when most of the food she ate was those same Dornish foods, it had not been as wonderful.

She was glad though to see just how many lemon trees there were in Dorne, and she had often eaten them. They were fresh here, which had made them taste even better than when she was at Winterfell. If Sansa and Arya were able to attend the wedding somehow, Daenerys didn't doubt that they would love them.

Prince Quentyn would be arriving from Yronwood soon from what Daenerys had heard, but all Daenerys felt was dismay from the news, even though soon was not a term that Prince Doran seemed particularly interested in specifying. Arianne had told her that soon was not like to be for a good long while though. If he planned to leave for the Water Gardens on the Morrow it might be by the Moon's Turn if they were lucky, and he might not have even sent word to Yronwood yet.

She wanted nothing more than to fall asleep and wake in her chambers back at Winterfell, when she wasn't to marry Quentyn Martell. She would be safe there, at home, without anything to trouble her, save for what mischief Rickon and Casella had gotten up to.

Eventually, she found Princess Arianne, who was reading to her son, but bid her sit next to them.

When the Princess had finished reading her story to Glendon, she closed the book, and allowed him to run off on his own. Daenerys felt her heart warm a little, but when he was gone, that left her alone with Arianne.

"My father told you the news I take?" She asked with little uncertainty in her voice.

"He did," said Daenerys a little miserably. She hadn't thought much about Lord Eddard since he had left Winterfell, but if he was imprisoned she knew she ought to do something to help him. "I asked him to help Robb, but he refused."

Arianne gave her a sad look. "My father is a weak man, but I fear there is little he could do to help your Robb."

"He's not-" She started to say. I wouldn't be here if he was.

"The father of the babe in your belly?" Princess Arianne finished for her, with a humored look on her face. "Then who is?"

"How… Yes... He is…" Daenerys managed, finding it hard to not stumble over her own words. She didn't want to tell anyone about it. Arianne knew her secret though she realized, which meant Prince Doran did as well most likely, and everyone else who cared to know would in time. It felt strange having uttered the words aloud, as though if she did not speak of her son that she wouldn't truly be with child, and now that she had, she was.

She wondered how Robb would feel if he learned he had gotten her with child, and how that Princess of his would take to it.

"The… The wedding… Will your father-" Daenerys tried to ask before Arianne cut her off.

"Have no fear. I bore the King's own bastard in the world before my father had me married off to a suitable man, even if he was not the one I would have liked. We do not look down on bastards here as much as the rest of Westeros," the princess said, and she placed a hand on Daenerys's stomach. It was just barely arched, but it was there. Princess Arianne stroked some of Daenerys's silver hair gently. "I do not doubt that my brother will still wed you, even after you have mothered a bastard," she said.

"But I don't want to marry Quentyn," she finally allowed herself to say. Daenerys felt a great weight had been lifted from her when she finally had confessed it. I want to go home more than anything, even if it is colder. It didn't matter if it means having to see Daemon, or Princess Myrcella, just so long as I'm home.

Princess Arianne gave a sad look. "In truth, I did not wish to wed either so soon after birthing Glendon. I had been betrothed to Elmar Tully before, but his father had broken off the betrothal when he had learned I was with child. Lord Hoster married him to some girl in the Riverlands instead, and when I had learned of that I wept."

Lord Hoster was Robb's grandfather, Daenerys remembered, and Ser Elmar his uncle. The thought of Arianne as Robb's aunt seemed a little silly to her, and she wondered if she could imagine something less likely.

"My father had wanted me to marry though, and so I did. He let me choose the man I wed, and I chose Andrey of my suitors, who had been a close friend of mine since childhood."

"It's not the same though. I don't know your brother," Daenerys insisted. She would've gladly married Robb, or even Daemon if she had to, but not Quentyn. She had dreamt of him some, the day of their wedding, yet whenever she tried to she always imagined him to look old and frail as his father did, sometimes even older, and she was always large and stout from her child, even after the babe had been born. Daenerys knew he was even younger than Arianne and certainly wouldn't look like that, but her dreams persisted.

She was not sure whether it was the uncertainty, Quentyn, or marriage itself that scared Daenerys, but she knew she was scared, even though she wasn't to even marry him for some time. It wouldn't be until the babe that grew within her had been born at least, if not longer.

Daenerys ought to have known it would happen some day. Robb was always going to wed some other highborn maid, and Daenerys if she wed would be married to some lesser noble that she likely didn't know. She had only hoped it wouldn't come this soon.

"When I marry Quentyn… What will become of my child?" Daenerys asked. That was the question that she had pondered most since she had realized she was with child. Robb would gladly welcome their son at Winterfell, to raise their son amongst his own trueborn child, just as his lord father kept Jon and Jeyne, she had decided, but Daenerys also remembered how Lady Catelyn had treated them, and wondered how she could condemn her own child to such a fate. If even that, since Princess Myrcella was Queen Cersei's daughter after all, and Robb had only been more certain in his desire to send her away after she had bedded him.

"That will be for you to decide then…" Arianne said.

"Could I keep him here at Sunspear?" Daenerys asked. If she raised her babe here she wouldn't have to fear the cruelties of the Princess and the scorn of the North.

"Most like… Though perhaps you would do well to have the babe grow up with their father. I cannot claim to know how my brother will take to you having a bastard before you are wed. Andrey has always been kind to my son, and treats him as though he were Glendon's true father, though I must confess that is part of why I choose him. I am not so certain of Quentyn," Arianne explained. It wouldn't be so bad to have a husband who could be like a second father to her babe, Daenerys thought to herself, if only she knew that Quentyn would truly do that, it would set her fears aside a little.

Daenerys wondered why she was so hesitant though to marry Quentyn at all. Quentyn was the second born child of the Prince of Dorne, a far better match that was like to be made for Daenerys under her circumstances, and certainly better than what could be made for her with the world knowing of her child.

"Glendon's father is dead now anyways, and his brother sits the throne… Well… Not his brother truly…" Princess Arianne mused with her raspy voice.

She was confused by that. "Not his brother? Your son isn't of Robert's seed?" Prince Glendon had all of his father's look to him, much more than Princess Myrcella or the rest of the King's trueborn children by Queen Cersei.

"Oh he is of Robert's body," Arianne answered. "It is the queen's children that aren't."

Daenerys was surprised by that. She could certainly see it now that she thought about it, but was still uncertain.

"How can you… How can you be certain?" Daenerys wondered.

"After Glendon had been born, I had hoped perhaps that I might be able to continue making myself of use to the King. To bear him another son so that perhaps he would set his queen aside and wed me instead… But the queen had fallen with child, with Prince Loren, not long after, and father did not share in my goals, instead having me marry instead, and simply petitioning the king to have my son be naturalized as my own trueborn heir. If I had known then what I know now, I am certain he would have," Arianne explained regretfully.

"But how?" Daenerys asked.

"You have seen both my Glendon and the queen's children, yes? My son bears far more resemblance to the king than any of the queen's," the heiress to Sunspear said back.

Daenerys nodded. She didn't know most of the queen's children very well, but she certainly remembered how every one of them looked as golden as Lannisters, and looked nothing like the king.

"I confess I have not met all of Robert's bastards, but at Storm's End I met two of them, a boy and a girl, the boy by some Florent lady, and the girl by some Stormlord's daughter… Estermont it was, a cousin of Robert's, yes, though the mother and older sister had drowned in a Storm. They both looked much like the king too," Arianne said.

Daenerys felt her heart beating a little faster in her chest as she seemed to realize what Princess Arianne was telling her. "You mean… You mean that the queen's children are bastards? If that's true… Your son would be king…"

Arianne nodded. "It does…"

"Then… Then why should anyone believe you?" Daenerys asked. It seemed possible that even Arianne was lying to her now, that this wasn't true. There was one daughter who hadn't been at Winterfell, and Arianne already had black hair, so Glendon having it did not seem so surprising.

"Lord Eddard might have discovered it," Arianne said suggestively. Daenerys considered the possibility and for a moment it made sense, else Lord Eddard was not like to go against his friend's son, though she still wasn't sure. "But Joffrey wouldn't be the only one to be a bastard… You say you do not wish to marry my brother… Help me take the throne for my son… And I can see too it that you have what you wish."

Yes, Daenerys thought to herself as she took Arianne's hand and placed it to her belly. She had wondered whether the babe inside of her would be a pup or a dragon, but now she felt certain she knew what it would be.

Author Notes:

And here comes another chapter.

So… Yeah, Daenerys has officially entered into the realm of scheming.

Our next chapter shall be checking back in with one of Eddard Stark's sons.

Anyways, I hope you enjoyed, and please leave all your lovely feedback. It means a lot to me.

As always, I don't own ASOIAF.