Tons of thanks to everyone who reviewed!

Lady of Dorne

Epilogue

"You'll come to Dragonstone with us, won't you, Mama?"

Elia looked down, scared that she'd break down in tears if she had to answer this question looking her son in the eye. "I cannot, Aegon. You're your father's heir, that's why you belong in Dragonstone. But I am no longer his queen, so I must live in Dorne now. Doesn't your grandmother take good care of you? I thought you loved her a lot."

He nodded. "I do. But it isn't the same thing."

Didn't she know it! She reached over and squeezed him tight, both proud and crushed for her little boy who was trying so hard to be brave. Still, the fact that he didn't insist panged her sharply. He had started distancing himself from her already. And there was a certain resignation about him that increased her worry. Was it because of her leaving? Or the fact that he had to live in this gloomy misty castle in the middle of a black sea?

He squirmed a little. "Mama!" he protested. "I must go. I'm busy."

He said it so business-like that she laughed as she released him. "What do you have to do?" she inquired.

"Aenar promised that he'd have the eggs brought out, so we can play with them."

She chuckled. "Hurry off, then," she said and thought that she might be too carried away with her concerns. Aegon was anything but moody. He had found friends here immediately, being particularly drawn to Aelinor and Aemon's youngest child who was only a few months younger.

Still, Elia moved to another terrace where she could have a better look at the gardens and the children were playing almost beneath her feet. She would never get tired of watching Aegon. After her prayers for a safe delivery, she prayed for a girl. She was sure that she could be a mother to only one son.

Now, Daenerys was trying to make a violet egg cut with silver lightnings to sink into the canal keeping the garden watered but it didn't want to. Without hesitation, Aegon entered the canal from the other side of the egg and tried to press it down, together with Daenerys. Elia laughed when he sank to his knees in his efforts but when they removed their hands, the egg adamantly swam back on the surface.

"So, that's where the eggs were," Rhaella said, joining her on the terrace. "I wondered all the time." She paused. "It feels strange," she said softly. "Looking at them treating dragon eggs like common playthings."

"I did the same thing when I was their age," Elia replied. "Uncle Aemon gave them to us for play with and never indicated that they were anything else but common playthings. Of course, he once believed that dragons were desperately needed but changed his mind about twenty-nine years ago. You remember the case?"

Rhaella took a seat, watching the children. To her surprise, Elia saw something like fear crossing the other woman's face. "I wish everyone else changed their mind as well," she said. "I believe Rhaegar won't try anything like the means he resorted to last time…"

"I hope not!" Elia snapped. If her former husband did try such a thing, Aegon might find himself facing two pretenders for the Iron Throne one day, instead of just one. Unless Lyanna killed Rhaegar first, of course. Which was not at all desirable. Aegon would certainly became a puppet of a regency that would exclude Elia from his life, let alone matters of states.

Rhaella let this one pass by. "Now, I don't mean him," she said. "There's a red priestess at Dragonstone and she's talking about a prophecy as well. And she's taking interest in Aegon," she added in a lower voice.

Elia's skin crawled. "Chase her away," she said sharply.

Rhaella shook her head. "I can't," she said. "She came to me with a letter from the Sealord of Braavos. I cannot offend him in such a way, I…"

"Pity, then, that Rhaegar didn't take after you," Elia snapped. She knew that Rhaella's concern was real but right now, she was not ready to acknowledge it. She rose and then froze at the pop she heard and the trickle that started soaking her skirts. This time, it looked like she'd give birth too soon. She silently prayed that she and the babe would both make it before sending for the maesters.

Elia had made no preparation for her new child's accommodations – no nursemaids, no nursery, no cradle even. The thought that she might end up with empty arms had always lived in her but in the Red Keep, it had been impossible to override the time-honoured rituals. Here, her will was the only one that mattered.

Now, it looked that her fears might have been justified. The birth had started only after two more days on top of the two days of slowly trickling water. The pains were strong but ineffective; more and more often, Elia did not even feel them – she was losing conscience for longer and longer periods.

The maesters' hushed conversations scratched her ears like mice running over a wooden floor; her aunt grip was painful, pressing her like a vice as Ranna insisted that Elia awoke. Ashara's face was a white blur of concern. More than once, she asked whether Elia wanted the Queen Mother here but each time, Elia shook her head. While she was attached to Rhaella, it did not feel appropriate that she'd be here at this moment. Instead, she held on to Alynna's hand, so tightly that two nails broke. Blood trickled down the back of her cousin's palm but she did not complain. "Next time, you'll be smarter," she said. "Moon tea it'll be for you from now on. And for me, for that matter."

"What does Arel say on the matter?" Elia asked between two flames of pain.

For a moment, Alynna's eyes shone with the daring light she had lost months ago. "It'd either that, or living as chastely as a septa, I told him last time. He didn't have much of a choice."

"Well," Elia quipped. "There us another way…"

Alynna's gaunt face was lit by a devilish smile. "There isn't," she vowed. "If I have to live like a septa, Arel Dayne will live like a septon as well!"

The women in the birthing chamber burst out laughing while the maesters looked downright uncomfortable. Pain and hopes, they were used to when a new life arrived. But humour? Elia laughed again, then moaned and her eyes started rolling. Unaware of what she was doing, she pulled Alynna's hand to her lips and bit her savagely. Alynna yelped in pain and surprise.

"Here, here," Naeryn said from the bottom of the chamber, near the bed, where she sat so that Elia could see her. "You don't need to feel ashamed. You're fighting a battle, after all. Alynna understands."

A battle. Resting between two pains, Elia looked at Naeryn's battle scars: her horrifying gauntness, her clumsy movements because there had hardly been a bone in her body that had not been broken and healing now, including her hand, her bloodless cheeks with a rugged scar that would probably never fade entirely. The one on her ear could be hidden one day but not now. Naeryn's glorious lush hair was no longer there, shaved off so the wounds on her head could be treated. Lately, it had started growing again but it was no longer than a fuzz for now and it would be years until she regained the crown of silver tresses that bards sang of. I must fight my battle, too, Elia thought and wondered whether she could be as brave as Naeryn.

It was already dark when the babe was finally pulled out of her and Elia's scream of pain turned into a moan of relief when the small body and the hand slid out of her body. She fell back against the arms of those supporting her who now removed her fingers from the ropes she had been holding to and helped her lean against the pillows. Why not make her comfortable until the time to expel the afterbirth came?

She was so weak that she couldn't ask whether the babe was healthy, or whether it was a boy or a girl. "A girl!" Ashara cried out. "Oh my hardheaded brother will be mad with joy. Ah Elia, you have a daughter."

Elia tried to smile and couldn't. When they brought the cleaned babe to her, they had to place her arms around the small body since she couldn't lift them. Now, she did smile with her swollen, bitten lips. Silver fuzz on a conic head, olive skin, lips that were moving as if she was trying to say something…

Someone brought a cup to her lips and she drank, feeling the blessed wetness sliding down her throat. At this moment, she was whiter than Naeryn, her eyes sunken in shadows and lines of pain, her cheekbones incised sharply. She looked every year of her age and then some but the smile that hovered over her lips was as old as the gods and young as the crying of the newborn.

"Go down to tell Arthur and everyone," Alynna turned to Ashara, securing Elia's arms more tightly around the babe. "I'll write to Alaenys tonight. She was so sorry she couldn't be here."

"I am not," Elia murmured. "She doesn't need to see what's lying in wait for her only a few moons from now." She tried to stroke her daughter's cheek but her hands were as irresponsive as the rest of her body. "But I wouldn't have minded for Rhaegar to be here and see," she whispered and smiled again, with wicked triumph. "And now…" she started, her face taut with pain, and they removed the newborn so she could expel the afterbirth.

Which she didn't. When Maester Caleotte looked between her thighs, a hell of panicky cries burst out. Elia screamed in pain no less than the one she had experienced giving birth, despite the fact that afterbirths didn't have big head.

Hands pushed against her belly from all sides. An arm twisted its way into the passage her babe her just travailed. A knife started twisting in her belly. And then, a solid blade flashed.

"When is she going to wake up?" Arthur demanded.

"If it's up to me, in a week," Maester Caleotte replied. "She'll be in lot of pain, my lord, and I really think we should keep her under the effect of the milk of poppy until the worst is over."

"I don't understand," Arthur said. "What went wrong? What happened?"

Elia lay in the birthing bed as pale as the Stranger, her eyelashes shockingly dark. It looked to him that even the merest whisper of breath didn't stir her lips.

Ranna Gargalen sighed and looked down. "Elia was scared that the babe lay sideways," she said. "And he was. We just didn't know that there were two of them. Blessed be the gods that it was the second babe that was transverse. With the room he had after her birth, we managed to turn him breech and pulled him out. But there was no way to do it without…" She paused. "We had to cut her, Arthur," she said bluntly. "Cut her and stitch her up."

He went white.

"That was the only way to keep both of them alive," Ranna went on. "It turned out better than we hoped for."

There was something that she wasn't telling him. "But what?"

She hesitated. The few candles left in the room flickered, sending their light away from her face, as if they wanted to veil her and what she didn't want to say.

"We had to take him out very fast," she finally said. "And he wouldn't come out without much strength used on him, for both maneuvering him and pulling him out. The birth canal was completely dry…"

By the look in his eyes, she might very well be trying to teach him the language of Sothoros. She immediately decided against telling him that they had been scared not only for Elia's life but her continence as well – a well-known, incredibly humiliating, and absolutely incurable result of too many births gone wrong. He wouldn't understand that either. Men knew little about those results and this one knew even less than most men.

She paused again, gathered her thought, and said, "He sustained an injury that is well known to afflict many babes with a hard birth. He'll experience some problems with his right shoulder and arm."

Once again, Arthur looked at her uncomprehendingly. "Some problems? What problems? For how long?"

"Till the end of his life," Ranna replied, looking nervously at the bed, although Elia was still unconscious and couldn't hear her. "That's the same injury Ivorr sustained at his birth."

In the bottom of the chamber, Ashara sobbed.

"What do you want to name them, Elia?" Arthur asked two weeks later when everyone had somewhat calmed down. For three days, she had been given lower doses of the milk of puppy, so she was awake for a few hours at a time. Even so, they kept her shatters closed – she was too weak to bear the harsh caress of the sun.

She looked at him blankly, the slightly better colour of her face gone. The double cradle was next to her bed and Arthur froze when her eyes moved over there. In the bottom of the room, Ashara wouldn't look at him. Instead, she rose and left without a word.

She knows, Arthur realized. They had decided not to tell her for a while out of fear that it could affect her own recovery. But maybe she had insisted that they unwrap the babes, so she could see them in their entirety. She had done this with both Rhaenys and Aegon. And the fact that their son held his arm under a particular angle could not escape the notice of an experienced mother like her.

"Why didn't you tell me?" she asked.

"Because I wanted you to recover," he said simply.

Elia bit her lip, tears welling in her eyes. "I didn't want a boy," she whispered. She was about to say something more but reconsidered.

Arthur sat down on the edge of the bed, taking her hands. "You aren't the one to blame, Elia. You were taking good care of both you and them. It just happened."

"But I am to blame," she murmured. "I am…"

She looked as if she was about to say something more but reconsidered. "Will he be able to hold a sword?" she asked. "Ever?"

"I don't know. Ivorr does."

The thought of her newborn facing the struggles Ivorr and Naeryn had faced was too terrible to bear. Tears welled up in her eyes and trickled down the dried paths left of previous tears. Arthur held her close.

"He's alive, Elia. And so are you. That's all that matters now."

She shook her head against his chest but stayed silent.

"He'll have the best the world can give him," he said. "Every chance available to him and most of those that will not be."

She snuggled closer, holding to him for dear life. "Do you think my father made Ivorr that promise?"

Memories, pain and heartache gripped him in a way nothing else had never done. He closed his eyes and buried his face in her hair. "Yes," he said. "I am sure he did."

Elia sighed. "He didn't keep it, did he?"

Fear coursed through his veins. He could already say that they'd have conflicts in their approach to raising their son. For himself, Arthur knew that he'd cling to Alric's ways, even if the tiny being lying in the cradle had to go through the torments that had been Alric's demands of Ivorr. Because he could see no other way for the newborn to lead a life like the one Ivorr led now, as unlimited by his injury as possible.

"He did," he said and pulled back to look her in the eye. "Of course he did."

For a while, she stayed silent before giving him a determined smile. "It could have been worse, couldn't it?" she said. "One or the other of us could have been dead."

She intentionally didn't mention the part about her own possible injury. She felt terribly guilty that even now, faced with her son's lifelong injury, a part of her was so relieved that she wouldn't spend her life bound to her bedchamber, unable to keep her own urine and feces from leaking out.

Arthur smiled back and went to the windows to let the sunshine in.

A trickle down the pile of hard winter snow. A flap of the wing of a newly hatched imperial eagle. A slight crack in the huge pieces of ice flowing down a river. The sweet smell of flowers rising their heads. That was how it started – the spring that maesters had promised. A real one, this time. It swept down the Iron Islands, turning men's minds to the spoils that would soon be gathered. Made a southern lady who had found her new home in the North sigh and ask sadly how many springs she would welcome before seeing her eldest. Crept into the Tower of the Hand where an old man recollected the joy and promises two boys he had loved dearly had always found in spring. Ambushed a king into his solar where he wondered what cruel streak would make the gods deny him his wish to grant it to a repudiated queen refusing to grant her wish. He had no doubts that all she had wanted was a healthy babe. Tugged at the heart of a queen who yearned for spring snows and instead had to watch a garden flower. Whispered hope and fear into the ear of a young mother to be who stood petrified at the top of a tower and prayed for the men caught in the big ship fighting a sudden storm in a deadly bay right there, before her eyes. Stirred the shawl wrapped over the head of a scarred, still hobbling woman who stood in the prow of a ship, watching an island of dragons rising bigger in front of her eyes. Moved the hot air into the nursery of two newborns who slept innocently, unaware of the hopes, disappointments, pain, and promises wrapped within them. Touched the sparkling ripples of the Summer Sea where it faded into silence.

The End

Many thanks to everyone who stayed with me for the duration of this story. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. I deeply appreciate the time you took to give me feedback.