p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"It should not have been possible for a child to slip past the guards again, out into the night, but all was in shambles in the castle of High Tide. The king's son had been mutilated and it was his daughter's son, the prince's nephew, who had wielded the blade. It was simple enough for Baela to quit the heaving foyer while her grandparents' attention was held elsewhere as lord and lady of the castle, the maester long since having seen to her and her injuries. Baela knew just the way to slip from the castle unheeded amidst the chaos of heightened vigilance, a way Aemond Targaryen would never have known. A secret passageway divulged to her by her mother. Lady Laena Velaryon would often tell her girls of growing up in Driftmark alongside her twin Laenor and sundry cousins. Laena had missed her home dearly; she had not returned since eloping with Prince Daemon Targaryen to Pentos. She was dead now, but home at last./p
p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"span class="s1"A lump rose in Baela's throat as she lay down upon the cliffside from whence her mother's body had been thrown. Oh, to feel the sea on her skin, to feel closer to her mother. But the way down from the cliffs was treacherous even in the light of day./span/p
p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"span class="s1"Beneath the rush of the waves against the cliff, she became aware of another sound: stones shifting underfoot. She lifted herself onto her elbows, her throat tight — and then all breath left her in a sigh of such relief it was almost painful./span/p
p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"span class="s1""The night is dark and full of terrors, Jacaerys."/span/p
p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"span class="s1"His brow furrowed. "It is?"/span/p
p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"span class="s1"Her best mimicry of a Red Priest of Rhllor wasted on this Westerosi boy. If not for the whisperings of grief stirring faintly within her, she would have laughed. Instead she murmured, "Should you not be abed, cousin?"/span/p
p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"span class="s1""I saw you slip away." His eyes evoked too much for her, even in the dark she did not want to look at them. Sorrow recognising sorrow./span/p
p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"span class="s1""Your mother will worry when she sees you've gone." She had seen how Princess Rhaenyra fussed over him even before the incident with the now one-eyed prince, smoothing down his hair and making sure his plate was full during meals./span/p
p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"span class="s1"Jace sat down beside her. "Won't your father also?"/span/p
p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"span class="s1"Baela flinched, a spasm wracking her body, so violent was the pain invoked by his words. She lay back quickly, hoping Jace had seen nothing of it. /spanspan class="s2"emYou miss it more/em embecause/em emyou/em emalways/em emhad/em emit/em/spanspan class="s1", Rhaena had told her with sad eyes after… After. /spanspan class="s2"emHe's/em emnever/em emignored you before/em. emYou'll get used to it/em./span/p
p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"span class="s1""Is it from here you can see emthe/em emWarrior's/em emHammer/em on a clear night?" Jace had lowered himself to his back, staring up at the night sky. She didn't know if she should feel surprised her uncle Laenor had told him that, this boy with his thick brown hair, brown eyes and pug nose, not a mark of Velaryon blood on him./span/p
p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"span class="s1""Further up the cliffside, I think."/span/p
p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"span class="s1"Laenor must have loved Rhaenyra's son to divulge to him the wonders of his childhood home as Laena had with her daughters. Were they in Pentos, and not the Seven Kingdoms, that would be little of note. Boys like Jace and his brothers had risen high to become magisters, the true power of the land. What they were was no mark against them there. /span/p
p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"span class="s1"And Jace seemed an easy boy to love in truth. The ache of her howling grief had subsided some in his presence. Earlier that day she had taken his hand without a second thought when he came to offer awkward condolences to her and Rhaena. Sorrow recognising sorrow. At least hers could be shown freely. When she showed him the secret clutch of Pentoshi flowers she had pressed between the pages of an old book, he looked intrigued, not bored like a page of her lord grandsire's had after she showed him the same, seeking a friend in this strange place. He listened eagerly to her tales of Pentos, even Rhaena's grief subsiding enough for her to join them. He followed her so easily into the night after she went to him and said Vhagar was missing; he was the first and only one she thought to go to. After Aemond Targaryen struck her so hard she fell to the ground, sneering that he'd feed her to Vhagar if she came at him again, Jace gave such a fierce yell as he rushed towards the other prince it was as if Saagael themselves had possessed him, the Lysene god also called the Giver of Pain. /spanspan class="s2"emHe/em emattacked/em emBaela/em. /spanspan class="s1"That was what Jace said when the king asked them all to speak on what happened that night; the first words out of his mouth and he used them to speak up in her defence. Her, Baela of Pentos, a mere lady to his prince hood; half-kin, half stranger./span/p
p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"span class="s1"Daemon Targaryen's face rose in her mind's eye, the one she thought would have defended her till his dying day, not a boy she'd met only two days before. But Prince Daemon merely leant against the foyer wall, watching the proceedings with a smirk. He stirred only to intercept Ser Criston when, upon order of his queen, the white cloak made for the princess and her son Lucerys. What had amused Daemon so, making him smirk as his daughters stood there with blood drying upon their faces? Her breathing shook. She had seen little of her father since coming to Driftmark, but what she had seen… His half suppressed, mocking laughter came to her ear, the way he laughed during Uncle Vaemond's eulogy for her mother, as if at some private jape. Her High Valyrian was still inadequate but what she understood of it shed no light on why Daemon had laughed./span/p
p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"span class="s1"Her throat had grown so tight, it felt as if someone was choking her. She couldn't catch her breath./span/p
p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"span class="s1"The faintest press of fingers on her arm. She barely felt it. "Baela?" Jace whispered into the night. She barely heard it./span/p
p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"span class="s1"emWhat/em had been so amusing? Her dead mother? His dead wife he could kiss fondly with the same mouth that in the next moment could dismiss her so easily, so coldly?/span/p
p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"span class="s1"The winds of grief rose within Baela once more./span/p
p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"span class="s1"She was wrong before. It was Daemon Targaryen who was the walking embodiment of Saagael, pain made flesh. No one else could have made her shake and howl so just from the mere thought of them./span/p
p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"span class="s1"In Pentos whenever Baela became upset beyond the point of words, her father used to pass his hand over her hair, the texture so unlike his own, and those of House Targaryen, never failing to make him smile. He was ever intrigued by it. Not much time ever passed before she calmed. One particularly bad day he pulled her close to him, her face tucked into his neck as he stroked her tight silver curls. As her crying quietened, his voice crooned in her ear, "The curse of the dragon's blood." He pulled back, hooking his finger under her chin so her eyes met his. Pride gleamed in his violet gaze, tempered by the soft, almost sad slant to his mouth. "It burns bright within you, my girl." He cupped her face in his sword-chapped hands, resting his brow against hers. "You feel things too strongly."/span/p
p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"span class="s1"Oh for those halcyon days when such moods passed quickly and stayed gone. Not this ever ebbing and flowing tide of sorrow, rage and despair. It rose so quickly sometimes, it scared her./span/p
p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"span class="s1"After Laena's death what was left of her family made a tableau of being alone together, starting from that fateful morning upon the rooftop after… when Prince Daemon had turned upon his heel and left two motherless girls crying behind him. Stepping foot onto this alien home away from home, the first person to greet them upon Driftmark was Lady Laena's mother. Rhaena, always mindful of her courtesies, sank into a fluid curtsy, Baela following less smoothly once it dawned upon her that the half-stranger before them was a princess of the blood. Their grandmother, however, would have none of that and rose them up with kisses to their brows, her arms firm around them. Tears had pricked Baela's eyes./span/p
p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"span class="s1"That was the first time she'd been hugged by arms other than her own since her mother died./span/p
p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"span class="s1"On the cliffside with Jacaerys Velaryon became the second./span/p
p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /p
p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /p
p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"span class="s1"A lump rose in Baela's throat as she lay down upon the cliffside from whence her mother's body had been thrown. Oh, to feel the sea on her skin, to feel closer to her mother. But the way down from the cliffs was treacherous even in the light of day./span/p
p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"span class="s1"Beneath the rush of the waves against the cliff, she became aware of another sound: stones shifting underfoot. She lifted herself onto her elbows, her throat tight — and then all breath left her in a sigh of such relief it was almost painful./span/p
p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"span class="s1""The night is dark and full of terrors, Jacaerys."/span/p
p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"span class="s1"His brow furrowed. "It is?"/span/p
p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"span class="s1"Her best mimicry of a Red Priest of Rhllor wasted on this Westerosi boy. If not for the whisperings of grief stirring faintly within her, she would have laughed. Instead she murmured, "Should you not be abed, cousin?"/span/p
p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"span class="s1""I saw you slip away." His eyes evoked too much for her, even in the dark she did not want to look at them. Sorrow recognising sorrow./span/p
p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"span class="s1""Your mother will worry when she sees you've gone." She had seen how Princess Rhaenyra fussed over him even before the incident with the now one-eyed prince, smoothing down his hair and making sure his plate was full during meals./span/p
p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"span class="s1"Jace sat down beside her. "Won't your father also?"/span/p
p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"span class="s1"Baela flinched, a spasm wracking her body, so violent was the pain invoked by his words. She lay back quickly, hoping Jace had seen nothing of it. /spanspan class="s2"emYou miss it more/em embecause/em emyou/em emalways/em emhad/em emit/em/spanspan class="s1", Rhaena had told her with sad eyes after… After. /spanspan class="s2"emHe's/em emnever/em emignored you before/em. emYou'll get used to it/em./span/p
p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"span class="s1""Is it from here you can see emthe/em emWarrior's/em emHammer/em on a clear night?" Jace had lowered himself to his back, staring up at the night sky. She didn't know if she should feel surprised her uncle Laenor had told him that, this boy with his thick brown hair, brown eyes and pug nose, not a mark of Velaryon blood on him./span/p
p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"span class="s1""Further up the cliffside, I think."/span/p
p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"span class="s1"Laenor must have loved Rhaenyra's son to divulge to him the wonders of his childhood home as Laena had with her daughters. Were they in Pentos, and not the Seven Kingdoms, that would be little of note. Boys like Jace and his brothers had risen high to become magisters, the true power of the land. What they were was no mark against them there. /span/p
p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"span class="s1"And Jace seemed an easy boy to love in truth. The ache of her howling grief had subsided some in his presence. Earlier that day she had taken his hand without a second thought when he came to offer awkward condolences to her and Rhaena. Sorrow recognising sorrow. At least hers could be shown freely. When she showed him the secret clutch of Pentoshi flowers she had pressed between the pages of an old book, he looked intrigued, not bored like a page of her lord grandsire's had after she showed him the same, seeking a friend in this strange place. He listened eagerly to her tales of Pentos, even Rhaena's grief subsiding enough for her to join them. He followed her so easily into the night after she went to him and said Vhagar was missing; he was the first and only one she thought to go to. After Aemond Targaryen struck her so hard she fell to the ground, sneering that he'd feed her to Vhagar if she came at him again, Jace gave such a fierce yell as he rushed towards the other prince it was as if Saagael themselves had possessed him, the Lysene god also called the Giver of Pain. /spanspan class="s2"emHe/em emattacked/em emBaela/em. /spanspan class="s1"That was what Jace said when the king asked them all to speak on what happened that night; the first words out of his mouth and he used them to speak up in her defence. Her, Baela of Pentos, a mere lady to his prince hood; half-kin, half stranger./span/p
p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"span class="s1"Daemon Targaryen's face rose in her mind's eye, the one she thought would have defended her till his dying day, not a boy she'd met only two days before. But Prince Daemon merely leant against the foyer wall, watching the proceedings with a smirk. He stirred only to intercept Ser Criston when, upon order of his queen, the white cloak made for the princess and her son Lucerys. What had amused Daemon so, making him smirk as his daughters stood there with blood drying upon their faces? Her breathing shook. She had seen little of her father since coming to Driftmark, but what she had seen… His half suppressed, mocking laughter came to her ear, the way he laughed during Uncle Vaemond's eulogy for her mother, as if at some private jape. Her High Valyrian was still inadequate but what she understood of it shed no light on why Daemon had laughed./span/p
p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"span class="s1"Her throat had grown so tight, it felt as if someone was choking her. She couldn't catch her breath./span/p
p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"span class="s1"The faintest press of fingers on her arm. She barely felt it. "Baela?" Jace whispered into the night. She barely heard it./span/p
p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"span class="s1"emWhat/em had been so amusing? Her dead mother? His dead wife he could kiss fondly with the same mouth that in the next moment could dismiss her so easily, so coldly?/span/p
p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"span class="s1"The winds of grief rose within Baela once more./span/p
p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"span class="s1"She was wrong before. It was Daemon Targaryen who was the walking embodiment of Saagael, pain made flesh. No one else could have made her shake and howl so just from the mere thought of them./span/p
p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"span class="s1"In Pentos whenever Baela became upset beyond the point of words, her father used to pass his hand over her hair, the texture so unlike his own, and those of House Targaryen, never failing to make him smile. He was ever intrigued by it. Not much time ever passed before she calmed. One particularly bad day he pulled her close to him, her face tucked into his neck as he stroked her tight silver curls. As her crying quietened, his voice crooned in her ear, "The curse of the dragon's blood." He pulled back, hooking his finger under her chin so her eyes met his. Pride gleamed in his violet gaze, tempered by the soft, almost sad slant to his mouth. "It burns bright within you, my girl." He cupped her face in his sword-chapped hands, resting his brow against hers. "You feel things too strongly."/span/p
p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"span class="s1"Oh for those halcyon days when such moods passed quickly and stayed gone. Not this ever ebbing and flowing tide of sorrow, rage and despair. It rose so quickly sometimes, it scared her./span/p
p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"span class="s1"After Laena's death what was left of her family made a tableau of being alone together, starting from that fateful morning upon the rooftop after… when Prince Daemon had turned upon his heel and left two motherless girls crying behind him. Stepping foot onto this alien home away from home, the first person to greet them upon Driftmark was Lady Laena's mother. Rhaena, always mindful of her courtesies, sank into a fluid curtsy, Baela following less smoothly once it dawned upon her that the half-stranger before them was a princess of the blood. Their grandmother, however, would have none of that and rose them up with kisses to their brows, her arms firm around them. Tears had pricked Baela's eyes./span/p
p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"span class="s1"That was the first time she'd been hugged by arms other than her own since her mother died./span/p
p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"span class="s1"On the cliffside with Jacaerys Velaryon became the second./span/p
p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /p
p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /p
