"I still can't believe that you didn't give her one tip," Shireen said to him as they neared Dragonstone's port. "Would it have been that hard?"
"I did give her one tip," Lyonel replied. He loved his sister but she could be irking sometimes.
Shireen shook her head. "You told her to stop. That was not a tip."
"She's too small," he chided her. "Let her grow a little, then she can take up the bow again, besides," he continued before his sister's ethereal persuasions could get deeper into his skull than they already were. "Father needs us back on Dragonstone, I don't have the time to be teaching children."
He looked out towards his home, emerging through the mist. More ships than before were arranged in the bay, as expected of his father, they were perfectly ordered. He had heard the grumblings in the port as he left King's Landing, complaints that his father had all but closed the Gullet, as the Velaryons had during the Dance of the Dragons, inspecting nearly every ship to go past it, and, judging by the numbers here, they were seizing more than a few of them. He had heard comments about hiring smugglers to get through, or fly Braavosi colours. He had considered turning them in to the authorities, but Shireen had said otherwise; she had reminded him that Ser Davos would know the paths the smugglers would take and could then seize them in the act, rather than just for some angry grumblings. The Gullet passed south of Dragonstone and Driftmark, but it was the only safe way out of the bay, for to go north of Dragonstone was to pass the Spears of the Merling King, and not even the bravest sailor would take that route. His father had put it less eloquently: "Anyone who is fool enough to try and sail that route is not worth bothering with."
He called over his shoulder to his sister. "We are nearly home," he said.
He heard her approach and then she hugged him from behind. "You need to relax a little, brother," she said to him softly. "Life is not all about duty, sometimes it is the small things like that that bring happiness."
"You bring me happiness," Lyonel said, turning around. "And if my wife does her duty, she may well as well."
"You think it is true then?" Shireen asked. "You think father wants you to marry Daenerys Targaryen?"
Lyonel had told Shireen on the ship, when they were alone, of his true mission in the east, and the only reasons he could think of for it. He hated keeping things from her, but his father had told him to. "I don't know," he replied, looking back at the imposing stronghold of House Targaryen. "I can't think of any reason why it would be necessary," he continued. "As a house we would gain nothing from the marriage, maybe he just wants to contain the threat she could represent."
"Murder?" Shireen asked confused. "Father would never do that."
Lyonel knew he wouldn't either. But he couldn't think of any other reason to bring her here. He was sure they would find out soon enough.
"Is that a pirate ship?" Shireen asked.
He glanced at the low bottomed galley she was pointing at, and nodded. "It would appear so."
"Why would father bring pirate ships here, surely he would sink them."
Lyonel nodded. "I would have thought so, but our father has never been the most… open of men."
Shireen giggled. "I know, you follow after him in that regard." She wrapped herself around his left arm and rested her head on his shoulder. "I hope you aren't marrying her," she whispered softly. "I want you to myself a little while longer."
"We'll both marry someday," he told Shireen, "but you will always be my sister, first and foremost to me." Shireen gripped him more tightly as they moved into Shipbreaker bay and he leant down and kissed her hair.
As they drifted closer to Dragonstone, his beloved sister spoke again. "I had another of my dreams last night."
He held her at arm's length and looked into their shared eyes. "Another dead dream?" She nodded, closing her eyes. "Did you not take some medicine?"
Shireen shook her head. "I ran out at Winterfell, I don't know what it was Lyonel, but something about that castle made them come more and more. I didn't want to ask the Maester there, or Pycelle, I don't want word of it spreading around."
"It's okay," he whispered to her, stroking her chin. "But why did you not come to me? I would have been there for you?"
"It's like you say, brother," she replied. "One day you will not be there, and I will have to rely on myself."
"But not yet," he implored her. "These dreams trouble you Shireen, and I would understand if you didn't want to inform Pycelle or Winterfell's maester, but I am here, tell me. If it troubles you, then it troubles me, and there is no one who would not be troubled by dreaming of the dead."
It had cursed Shireen as long as either of them could remember. Some nights she would toss and turn in her bed as a person long dead invaded her sleep. No one understood it, at first it seemed that she was just remembering people from her lessons in history, but before long she was dreaming about people she had never heard of.
As a test they had locked up every book in Dragonstone to see if she truly was dreaming about people she had never heard of. Then she had dreamt of Melissa Blackwood, having never read or been told about her in all of Shireen's life. These people would often talk to her in her sleep, tell her things, their names first and foremost. It wasn't always a new person every time, sometimes one of the dead would return to her and talk some more, but they kept on coming.
Eventually, Maester Cressen had concocted a liquid solution that kept the dreams away, allowing Shireen to sleep peacefully every night, rather than let sleep engulf her in fear, praying that a dead dream, as they called them, did not come to disturb her. They weren't even always dreams of those dead people, sometimes the dead would invade her other dreams, her peaceful dreams of happiness and joy.
"Who was it this time?" He asked her.
She hugged his arm closer to her. "Our great grandmother, Rhaelle Targaryen."
"What did she say to you?" Lyonel asked.
"She said that she was glad that her line has not lost it"s beauty. That there was still strength left in it, that it might avoid it's destiny to fall."
Lyonel thought that over for a brief moment, then discarded it. He scoffed instead. "All that proves is that the dead are as much fools as the living," he told his sister reassuringly, "only fools believe that our futures are shaped by destiny; it's the Seven decide them for us."
They made their way up to Dragonstone, through a rocky pass that would make a frontal assault on the fortress very costly indeed. Despite their obsession with dragons, Valyrians had not been entirely stupid, for which he was most grateful. At the gate there were twice the usual amount of guards, though the captain of the guards, Ser Martyn Fell, recognised them and let them pass without the hassle that others appeared to be suffering.
Instead they made their way straight to the chamber of the painted table, where Ser Martyn had told them their father would be awaiting them. Though they first dropped their possessions off in their chambers, Shireen letting the girl handmaiden stay in her room until they were done, they eventually made their way to the chamber of the painted table. As they approached the hard oak door, it opened and a woman, taller than Lyonel and clad in flame red robes, a gold choker inset with a ruby around her throat, and even her eyes burned with red, emerged from the other side, giving them a passing nod before moving past them.
They looked at each other, neither of them recognising the woman in red. They would talk about it with their father in the chamber.
Lord Stannis Baratheon was sitting at the far end of the chamber, looking out over the bay, his wife beside him, was looking backwards with venom at the red woman, though her expression changed when she saw Lyonel and Shireen enter. "My children!" She rushed over to them, hugging them fiercely. Lyonel hugged her back, running his fingers through her hair before stepping back. Their father had stood up and marched over to them.
"Lyonel," he said, nodding. "Shireen, it is good to see you."
Shireen smiled widely and, given that they were only family, hugged her father tightly. "Father," she whispered. Their father hugged Shireen back, holding her close, when no one was near, Lord Stannis did allow himself to be a father.
"Is it done?" He asked Lyonel.
"Yes father," he replied. "Ten thousand gold dragons."
Stannis nodded. "Good. This will be the one time I will approve of Robert"s ridiculous spending. Though I think he would have a fit if he ever learnt that I said those words."
"He won't hear it from us, father," Shireen said.
An object caught his eye, or rather several objects, Lyonel looked closer at the table and saw that several ship figures had been placed on Dragonstone, facing the rest of Westeros. "Father?" He asked, pointing to them. "What is going on here?"
Lady Myrielle nodded to her husband, and Stannis walked around the table until they were facing each other across it. "Close the door," he said, and Lyonel did so. Confused as to what his father was about to say. "There is corruption in the court," he told them gravely. "A corruption so deep that it has supplanted the rightful laws of the realm."
"What are you talking about father?" Shireen asked. Lyonel had learned to stay quiet until his father was finished. She had not. "What corruption?"
"The king has been made a fool of," their father said. "He has been dressed in motley and been given horns."
Lyonel's breath hitched. "The Queen has taken a lover?" He asked, unable to stop himself.
"Far worse than that," his mother said, moving around the table to join her husband.
Lyonel and Shireen looked first to each other, seeing confusion in the eyes of the other. Then they looked across the table, seeing their own eyes and hair in their father, and their sharp facial features in their mother. She looked to Stannis, who nodded to her. "The queen's lover is her brother, Ser Jaime, and there is more to it than that, it is not so simple."
"How so mother?" Lyonel asked. He looked at Shireen, who was pale with disgust at the thought of brother lying with sister. He wrapped his arm around her shoulder consolingly, rubbing it gently.
This time it was their father who answered. "The royal children, Prince Joffrey, Prince Tommen and Princess Myrcella, they are born of that union."
Lyonel gripped the edge of the table and shuddered. It was ridiculous, how could that possibly be true? But how could his father lie? Two things that could not be true. The question was, which was more likely, that his father was lying, or that the Queen was not cuckolding his uncle. "How did you come to discover this father?"
"Over time," he said, "with effort, and the help of the late Lord Arryn, his help was invaluable to uncovering the truth in this matter. My brother has appetites of a particular nature, and in fulfilling them he left the final proof."
"What?" Shireen asked weakly, still struggling to comprehend what had happened.
"Look in the mirror, daughter," their mother said consolingly, though she did not move from her place beside her husband. "Question how it is that in your eyes and hair you resemble your father and his brothers, and how it is that the queen's children do not."
"Our uncle's bastards?" Lyonel asked, understanding, finally, what his father had meant. "But if you have discovered this, we must go to the king," he urged, "let him see the truth."
"And how will he react, Lyonel?" His father asked. "Think," he said. "If you or I were to go to my brother and present this proof, it would be self-serving, and Robert would at best laugh it off, at worst take it as an insult to his virility. Insulting Robert's virility would be a costly mistake."
Shireen looked up at their parents. "If that is the case, then how do we proceed father?"
"We hope for the best," he said. "But prepare for the worst, there is a reason I have been seizing the ships that pass through the gullet."
"War," Lyonel muttered.
Stannis Baratheon nodded. "With some fortune it will not come to that, but if it does we must be ready."
"There is hope," Shireen said. "Lord Stark seemed interested in Lord Arryn's demise," she said. "Maybe he can learn what Lord Arryn did, Uncle Robert would trust anything coming from that man."
"We can hope," Stannis said. "Though I do not doubt that the Lanister woman will try to do away with him, as I am sure she did Lord Arryn."
"Then we should warn him," Shireen said, looking at her parents. "Send a raven, or go in person and-"
"No." Their father said. "Ravens can be intercepted, and I will not risk either of you going back to warn him. Either of you."
Lyonel became aware of his heart at that moment, beating in his chest. "You have a plan then?"
Lord Stannis nodded. "We have the fleet, and by the time war comes, if it does, we shall have control of the Narrow Sea."
"But what about soldiers?" Lyonel asked. "You have commented before that the lords of the Narrow Sea can assemble five thousand soldiers."
"And mediocre ones at that, but we have two ways of getting more soldiers for our cause."
"What ways?" Shireen asked.
Lyonel knew what they were talking about. "Us."
Stannis nodded. "Unless Lord Stark can uncover the truth and safely inform Robert, good men and true will continue to believe that Joffrey is the true heir to his name. But there are other ways. Many houses still foster support for the fallen Targaryens, and we have the last of them."
"And me, father?" Shireen asked. "Who will I be wedding for our family?"
"That remains to be seen," Lord Stannis said. "If I make the arrangements so quickly now, then the Lannisters will catch on to what I am doing."
"I recommended Willas Tyrell," their mother said.
"No, not the Tyrells, I starved because of them, I will not sell of my only daughter to that house of unfaithful opportunists."
"If it serves us, father," Shireen said, and Lyonel only detected a hint of pain in her voice. "Then I will marry Willas Tyrell."
Lord Stannis nodded at his daughter's courage. "We will say nothing for now," he told them. "Do nothing, but be ready to do your duty for our house."
"Yes father," they said together.
Lord Stannis nodded. "Be careful, and make it clear to no one what is going on, I need your discretion now."
They bowed. "No one will hear it from us, father, no one," Shireen promised.
"Good, now leave, it would not do for us to be seen in here too long, and you both had a ship to unload."
They left, making their way to Aegon's Garden. They sat in silence amongst the smell of pine, contemplating what they had just been told. "You know what father didn't say don't you?" Shireen asked him.
He raised an eyebrow and looked at her. "No."
"What if the Lannister Queen does murder Lord Stark, what if she also murders uncle Robert?"
Lyonel thought it over. "Then Joffrey will seize the throne."
"Wrongly," Shireen pointed out. "The rightful heir will be our father."
It will, Lyonel realised. "Then, when father takes his rightful place…"
"You will be his heir," Shireen finished.
Lyonel did not know how to comprehend that news; him, the king. That was not how it was supposed to be. He was supposed to serve his cousin as Lord of Dragonstone. He heard Shireen giggle, and looked at her. "What's wrong?"
"My brother will be king," she said. "Nothing could possibly be wrong." She launched herself at Lyonel as they had often done as children, and soon they were rolling around on the grass of the garden. Eventually they came to a halt, side by side, laughing and looking up at the sky.
"How am I supposed to prepare for that?" He asked her, still unsure that it was happening.
Shireen rolled over so that she was lying on top of him. She linked their fingers over his head. "I'll be there Lyonel," she said, looking deeply into his eyes. "However and whenever you need me, I'll be there."
"I know you will," he whispered back. "And I am glad for it."
Shireen smiled and pressed her lips to his forehead. Lyonel unlinked their fingers and held her close to him. He thought back to the first time he had gone to court with his father, Shireen had come as well, they were both scared, but his father had told him, "hold your sister's hand, Lyonel, and don't let go." He never had. They had been in the throne room, and saw the king, so majestic holding court, their father sitting beside the throne, advising him. They had only later found out that it was Jon Arryn on the throne, their uncle was "out" they had been told. He knew now that meant he was with whores. "It may be up to you to hold my hand at that time, Shireen," he said to her.
She leant back and looked confused, and then comprehension dawned on her features. She took his hand in her own. "Whatever you need," she repeated. Then she got up and pulled him with her. "Come, it would be unseemly to find us here. Some might think that we will revive the Targaryen traditions."
Lyonel laughed at the suggestion; the Seven declared incest a great sin, why in their name would he commit it? It was they heard footsteps approaching. It was their mother who turned the corner. She smiled at the sight of them. "There you are," she said. "I didn't mention this with your father present," she said, "but something serious has happened."
"What is it mother?" Lyonel asked. She was being very serious.
"Did you see the woman that left the chamber of the painted table just before you arrived?" She asked, they both nodded. "Her name is Melisandre, and she is a Red Priestess of the Lord of Light."
"That's a religion in Essos," Shireen commented. "What is she doing here?"
His mother looked dark. "I don't know," she muttered. "She came offering her services to your father," she said. "Do not let her interrupt or sway your faith," she implored. "I raised you in the light of the Seven, do not let my work be in vain."
Lyonel placed his hand on her shoulder. "I am a servant of the Warrior and the Seven," he told her. "No god of fire will ever sway me from that path."
"Just as I serve the Maiden and the Seven," Shireen said, stepping up to their mother" other side. "I will be no more swayed than my brother."
"What is happening here?" They looked over at the sound of their father approaching.
"We were talking, husband," Myrielle said to Stannis. "As families should."
Stannis came closer. "What about?" He asked.
As they got drawn into a conversation with their parents, Lyonel found himself smiling, these moments between family did not happen much, and, if his father was right in his predictions, they would become fewer and further between before long.
