Silver Tears of the Moon

Crimson Streaks

A birth starting a few days before the date estimated by the maesters was not anything to worry about and Astrea entered the birthing chamber eager and confident. "I can't say he has chosen a bad day to arrive," she jested as women and maesters were gathering around her and she demanded that someone open the windows because this crowd made the heat worse.

"If it's a son, Your Grace," Rhaegel's Alys said reasonably and Astrea glared.

"It's a son," she stated with certainty that Baelor could not fathom but wanted to believe anyway – and not because of the realm alone. He had assured Astrea that he did not fear the terrible disease that had cut Dyanna's lifethread in her prime and at the time, he had believed it wholeheartedly. Now, though… he did not want a girl.

"Will you keep me company for a cup of tea?" Astrea asked and Baelor stared.

"Tea? Now?"

She waved a hand. "Things won't start getting serious before sunset, at least, so I'd rather not spend the day in the birthing bed. I'll spend enough time there anyway… and I'm not looking up to it. But I can see you won't feel comfortable so I'll have it with some ladies instead. My mother, your mother… I suppose I'll have to invite Alys as well," she said reluctantly, for despite the amicable relationship between the two, she still held a grudge over Alys' assumption that the babe might not be a boy. "It'll do Aurelia some good to see that there's no need to panic before the real work actually starts."

She talked lightly, but in her eyes, the horror was alive, dancing with monsters and memories. All of Baelor's irritation with her from an hour ago was now gone. He only saw her as the brave young woman who had come to seek justice from him.

"Enjoy your time of tea and gossiping," he said. "All will be well, you know. You do this as easily as I aim my spear."

She laughed. "I'll take care to remember this!"

In the hours that followed, his words were justified. Until the very end. When the end would not come. It just would not.

Baelor's spear had not always brought him the victory.

He could not say when the air shifted. When everyone started waiting for a terrible end and not a robust heir to arrive any moment now. As the night advanced, most of the court grew too tired and decided that they would hear the news in the morning anyway. Weariness was… well, wearing even the morbid curiosity of the Red Keep.

"Do take a walk," Maekar said curtly. "You're doing yourself no service. This is the most terrible waiting in the world."

Baelor glanced at him and felt his mouth curl. "Worse than the waiting at the Redgrass Field?"

"Infinitely worse. Go out and walk some. Clear your head. If something happens, we'll find you and let you know."

So Baelor left Astrea's chambers and went out in the Queen's Garden, passing by people who milled around, their eyes going up to the windows behind which the lights in Astrea's chambers burned. The two Kingsguard trailing him had made him recognizable due to their white cloaks, so a path opened before him wherever he went. He took in the oppressive heat with the faint but heavy smell of flowers and bushes that the sun had parched despite the best efforts of the castle gardeners. A crescent moon threw a faint silver line over the thick walls. For first time in years, Baelor found himself marveling at how life and green could bloom here, within Maegor's thick, bloodied walls.

Bloodied… and once again, he looked at Astrea's windows, just as brightly lit as before but this time, there was no one silhouetted against the curtains while just a moment ago, there had been at least three people. Fear cut him like a blade, swift, searing… A flock of ravens passed overhead, dark wings fluttering, and Baelor remembered that those were not just couriers of highborn but also servants of the Stranger…

But here! Astrea screamed again, a scream that rose into a shriek tearing at the night, with nothing human to it. She had long ago given up on any attempts to preserve dignity. Baelor sighed with temporary relief and startled when he heard the voices from the other side of the bush.

"We should go back," Aurelia Dayne said.

"Why?" Daeron asked. "She's still fighting. She's done this four times before. She'll do it again. And we aren't needed. No one is going to look for us. Do you truly want to go back?"

"No," the girl admitted. Baelor could feel her hesitation like a stir in the air before she asked, "Do you think it's true? That she overlay her babe and smothered him?"

"I don't know," Daeron replied. "Why do you think I would?"

"Because, out of everyone I know you're the only one who…"

Daeron cut her off. The anger in his voice was so raw that Baelor almost rounded the bush to check if it was truly his nephew, for Daeron might have many flaws but swift anger was not one of them. "You thought you'd ask the mummer of the Red Keep, didn't you? Sorry to disappoint a fine lady such as yourself but my dreams don't come to me in the form of an eye peeking in other people's lives. They aren't enjoyable – and they aren't something I like to gossip about."

"I'm sorry." Aurelia's voice was shaking. "I didn't mean it like this. I know that for you, this is a torture, I know. I just…"

"Yes?" Baelor had only ever heard Daeron's voice so hostile when he was addressing Aerion.

"I was so resentful." The girl was now speaking so softly that Baelor could barely hear her – which was a good thing, probably, because he had no business eavesdropping anyway. "She ruined my life, you know, just so she could wed for love."

Baelor expected of Daeron to say that Aurelia's life was not ruined but the boy was silent.

Aurelia went on in a rush. "And then what? I'm still waiting for a child to grow up and she wed again – to the King, no less! And he's always so gentle with her, and she got to give birth again while I'll likely have my first child at the age she's now – with her fifth! It wasn't fair!"

"I know." All the anger had disappeared from Daeron's voice. "So you thought that if she had truly smothered her son, that would have been something like… justice?"

"I don't know. It was something that I've considered. But it wasn't real. I never really thought she might have done it. People love to make lies about highborn all the time. But… she might have done it, you know. She might have just gone to sleep. As she may now…"

"No," Daeron interrupted her, his voice dark and full of monsters. "She won't. As long as she's screaming, she's fighting. It's the quiet ones that should scare you."

Aurelia's words were now so quiet that Baelor could not make them out – which he should not be doing anyway.

At this moment, the light behind Astrea's window turned a hundred times brighter and her scream must have reached the foot of Aegon's Hill, a prolonged howl that lasted for eternity, and when it finally stopped, the light turned into a net of shards as everyone in the birthing chamber burst into motion…

Baelor turned and ran back, his heart pounding so hard that he could not hear anything else.

Silver-white, this new prince was, taking after his mother and looking more Targaryen than Baelor himself. He was glad, because that would save his son some of the hardships that had stood in his own way. Silver-white and howling loudly. What more could he want? And yet the memory of leaning over another cradle in which the firstborn that another woman had given him slept haunted him since the very first moment the relief that both Astrea and Gaemon were alive had settled in. Then, the party returning from Dorne, a month after Redgrass Field and the little bundle in Jena's arms… She had fought and won her battle as he had fought and won his...

Who could say from his beaming face that the old wound had started throbbing once again? Would his happiness be forever streaked with pain that would not go away, rising just when he thought he had managed to leave it in the past?

"How are you?" he asked, going to Astrea's bed and doing his best to hide his consternation.

Labour had… soaked all the colour off her, turning her face into a translucent map of the red and blue lines underneath. Her lips were white and bitten all over and when she tried to smile, the effort proved too great. Astrea, a healthy, experienced mother who had one this round as well looked worse than Jena ever had in her losses. "Fine," she said; had Baelor not seen the words on her lips, he would have never heard them. He reached over and took her hand.

"Thank you," he said softly but with a deep feeling.

"Take him out," Astrea whispered and went to sleep before Baelor could assure her that he would. Her mother hurried over to the bedside, the maesters rushed over and Baelor strode out because sleep might be the greatest danger to new mothers but sleep deprivation was considered torture for a reason. He felt that he simply could not watch.

"What happened?" Baelor asked as the just awoken court was surging towards the great hall and all the bells of the Great Sept were ringing. "What went wrong, Mother?"

Mariah's smile disappeared. "Everything was going on just the way it should," she said. "Until he started descending and could not. His head was tilted to one side ever so slightly. Sometimes, throes flatten it enough to fit. That was what happened at Maekar's birth. But not today. At the end, they had to go elbow-deep to try and turn it right. I really thought they would both die. By the grace of the Seven is he intact. One of his eyes could have been…" She shuddered.

Bile rose to Baelor's throat; he barely managed to keep his dinner in. The guards at the entrance of his apartments stepped aside and he let his mother go in before him.

Someone had left wine in his solar. He looked at Mariah. "Do you want some?"

She shook her head. Baelor did not feel like drinking either. He went to the window and stared out into the night that the celebrations had turned into a bright day, with torches burning everywhere and music already starting. Still, it was a night and Baelor thanked the Seven for this small mercy. The world would have to wait a few hours to see little Gaemon – both babe and mother could use the rest! He turned around. "Are you sure she's fine?"

Mariah hesitated. "I don't know. She didn't pass out during the… procedure… and they managed to staunch the bleeding. For now, I'd say she's fine. But birth has a way of doing things to women. Time would tell. I'm simply grateful that she survived."

"So am I," Baelor said absent-mindedly, marveling at how the Seven had decided not to take it all from him once again. We're truly just playthings in their hands, he thought. All the way through, Astrea had been thriving, only to have such a tiny thing as a tiny head tilted slightly askew to almost crush her.

"He is lovely," Mariah commented, her eyes shining. "I expected that he'd come out much more bruised. Maekar was blue and his eye was swollen shut. But Gaemon is perfect."

"He is." Baelor's voice sounded strange in his own ears and he was not surprised when his mother gave him a troubled look.

"Is it ever going to stop?" he asked, very softly, and turned to his mother. "Even today, they haunt me. Is it going to end?"

Mariah hesitated. "Eventually, it will. But not entirely. It's never entirely…" she trailed off, her voice a mere thread. She hated seeing him like this, hated that even in the days of his greatest joy, pain would find a way to leave crimson streaks.

Ever since those first days when they had all moved like in a dream and seen the world through the haze of stunned pain, he had thrown himself in work and kept busy, escaping the pain in the concerns about the realm, keeping everyone at bay. Somehow, Astrea had broken through this wall – but Astrea had barely managed to keep herself from going through the Stranger's door. Right now, she was a source of another concern and not a comfort.

"Come here," Mariah said in a low voice and somewhat to her surprise, he did, holding her tight, as he had used to do when he had been a child in need of comfort. She held him back. No words were needed, so neither of them spoke.

From the King's windows, the brightly lit halls in which the world was celebrating the birth of the future King looked like tiny balls of fire.