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Lady of Dorne

Waiting

Once again, Elia looked up and once again, her eyes found nothing. Just the sky. Her eyes tried to permeate the clouds above her head, hoping to see a raven coming from the south, from home, but found none. The rumours were flowing incessantly, each more fearsome than the last. All they spoke of a plague, of a sickness that had been localized in a few pockets of Dorne… the biggest one being Sunspear. They spoke of bodies rotting out in the streets, for people were too scared to go out and bury them, thus spreading the contamination further. Of dry winds carrying it in all directions. Of quarters left without inhabitants. Of highborn and lowborn dying alike in drove. Of quarantine that made it hard to know the real size of the damage.

All the time she could spare for herself, she spent in the sept, praying. Rhaegar insisted that she was doing her health no favour by kneeling in the cold for so long. She paid him no mind. He had gone so far that he had actually ordered braziers to be taken and pillows be laid out in the sept for her benefit. She ignored the pillows and the Great Septon himself had objected to the braziers. Day after day, immediately after forcing herself to swallow the breakfast her ladies fetched her, she knelt on the cold marble of the sept, beseeching the Seven to spare those she loved, to look kindly to the land of her birth, the land of her heart. Then, she fulfilled the queenly duties that could not wait, spent some time with the children, went on the top of the highest tower of the Red Keep to look for ravens and returned to the sept where she stayed until dusk and the evening feast.

"Princess, I'd like to…" the Kingsguard said and she startled. He did, too, realizing what he had said. When they were alone, the few Dornish attendants she had left addressed her with the title she had been born to but to the Sword of the Morning, she was always "my queen" or "Your Grace".

"Yes?" she prompted him. "You may speak freely, Ser Arthur."

Her words were one thing but they both knew better. This terrible waiting had brought them closer once again, for he had his own loved ones to worry about, just as she did. But there was still the line that could not be crossed – it was in her surprise, in his own shock at addressing her the old way, as he had once when they had still been friends. They might have started feeling somewhat comfortable around each other again but it was only as long as they held to their parts – the first queen and the Kingsguard.

He swallowed and braced himself the way she had seen him bracing at the Water Gardens before the water competition with his friends. "We used to be friends once. When we were children, we always told each other the truth. We never lied to each other… I'd like to have our relationship stay the same."

"But it is the same," Elia said.

He shook his head. A small puff of the wind made his white cloak billow. "No, it isn't and I'd like… I'd like to make amends. Whatever you say. I cannot stand this situation any more."

Her lips curved into a faint, sad smile, the loss stinging as it had the day when, still too weak to rise from her childbirth bed, she had heard that he had disappeared along with Rhaegar and Lyanna Stark, as it had the day Rhaegar had returned alone, leaving Arthur to guard his other wife, as it had the day she had learned that it was their homeland that he had been staying in while she had fought for herself, her children and her Dornish retinue in the Red Keep, while her kin had been dying in the battles Rhaegar's obsession had led to.

"It wasn't me who made it such, Ser Arthur," she reminded him.

"It wasn't me either, Princess."

"I know," Elia sighed. She had always acknowledged this. Her head knew it but her heart was a different matter. Stupid heart, it refused to let reason in. "But I cannot help but feel so."

He looked at her, then quickly looked aside, not bearing the sight of the hand she had raised to keep her hair from flowing into her face. With time, the scars had faded but they were there, they would never disappear, those ugly marks on her skin, the lines left by the burning beams the day King Aerys had razed the Red Keep almost to the ground… Arthur had often wondered what he had been doing this exact day, this exact moment at the round tower in the Red Mountains, yet he could never remember. All his days had been the same – the agony of not doing anything while the others fought, not knowing what was going on, not being able to go home when home was so tantalizingly near…

"What can I do to make up?" he asked, feeling what her answer would be. Elia of Dorne was nothing if not just. She measured him objectively – and gave him what he objectively deserved. Respect. The favour a noted member of the Kingsguard merited. But what he wanted should come out of the heart – and no one could control their heart.

She gave him a long hopeless look. His heart ached at the thought of everything they had lost, the trust they had shared and no longer did. "What you do already. You'll stay the Kingsguard and I, the Queen." She looked at the distance for one last time. "Let's go."

In the courtyard, the Master of Laws executed a low bow in front of the Queen. Arthur fought the urge to stand before her, shield her from those ghastly pale eyes. He could feel her revulsion even as she nodded graciously. Of course, they had no grounds to accuse the man of anything: he was always perfectly deferential to Elia, her children, the remains of her Dornish retinue. He performed his duties efficiently and meticulously. They only felt that he was a man who was gruesome and unclean in his soul. Elia felt the urge to take a bath each time she had been near him. "Lord Bolton," she said.

"Your Grace," he replied. "Are there news of your homeland?"

She shook her head. "Still nothing."

She would never let her worry show in front of someone like him. In fact, she could now understand why Lyanna had thrown such a fit when she had learned of his appointment, citing all the vices and supposed vices of House Bolton, as if a faultless character and goodness of the heart were what Rhaegar sought in his new Master of Laws, as if she had expected that he'd give the position to one of her family instead. Elia had been quite surprised by the girl's surprise. Surely the fact that Rhaegar had appointed Lord Yronwood, of all Dornishmen, Master of Ships should have told Lyanna what his course was? With time, Elia had come to realize the full extent of the girl's naivety where politics was concerned – and the fact that in King's Landing, everything was about politics. But no matter how impulsive Lyanna was, she was not wrong about Roose Bolton. He was an evil man. Not that it mattered, of course…

"I am sorry to hear that," he now said. Elia only nodded.

"Thank you, my lord," she said. "You'll excuse me now. I have to go to my children."

"Of course, Your Grace," he said and bowed again.

She went on her way, mentally preparing to behave as normally as she could around the children. She had already decided that she wouldn't receive the merchants who had begged an audience – she could not focus enough. They could address their pleas to Lyanna or Rhaegar himself, although she doubted it would bring them much luck – Rhaegar was too consumed by worry about the future because it looked like despite his spending every night with Lyanna, she was just as able to give him the second daughter he so craved as Elia had been. As to Lyanna, she often complained that when she was forced to receive such people, she lost their train of thought between the blandishments and eloquent pleas they tried to win her over with. But now, Elia's state of mind was such that she lost her own train of thought ever so often – her worry was just too great. Only in the sept could she find some semblance of composure.

The echo of hooves brought her eyes to the gate of the yards. A group of horsemen came through. Arthur stood frozen, having recognized them a moment before she did. "Princess," he said and his voice caught.

Her eyes went over all their faces and finally stayed on the rider in the lead. Her father. Her blood curdled when she realized what that meant.

"No," she whispered.

Arthur's arms around her were the last thing she felt before blessed darkness engulfed her. She welcomed it eagerly.