Heart's Blood
The Rose-Bud
"Rhaena loves dancing," the boy said all of a sudden and in the beginning, Larra didn't even register that it was him, let alone that he was addressing her. But when she did, she stopped twirling and gave him a long look, the image of the young son of a certain magister giving her a look of rapt attention disappearing from her mind entirely.
"So he can talk, after all," Lysaro said and Larra glared at him.
"What?" he asked. "Won't you keep dancing?"
"No," she snapped and turned to look at the boy. But it was too late now, it seemed. The moment had passed. He was staring ahead of him, polite as ever but withdrawn. The door to his past was closed.
He was a strange boy, this Viserys Targaryen. Her father claimed he was nine years of age but he looked smaller, his head too big. He was very pale, as if he had wilted for the lack of sunlight. Larra knew that he had been kept in the palace of House Giarani under heavy guard before her father bought him off with whatever gold and promises he had used. He had been living with them for two months already but she had rarely heard his voice. She knew that he was not of weak mind because she had actually watched him as he read in the olive garden. His eyes actually followed the lines. And he followed the instructions the swordmasters gave him. He understood everything. He was just reluctant to talk unless addressed. But now he had – to her. She had stirred something within him and with all the recklessness and mindless selfishness of her sixteen years, Larra felt immensely proud.
"Rhaena?" she repeated. "Your mother?"
A moment too late, she realized her mistake. The name sounded like his mother's but that wasn't it. As if to confirm it, he shook his head.
"Sister," he said. His eyes welled up and Larra's triumph disappeared. Moredo started saying something but she spun around and gave him a look that made the words catch up in his throat – a unique event in itself.
Time went on and little by little, from what her father told her and Viserys' own sudden comments, more frequent now, Larra was able to piece the entire story of this prince from a faraway land together, or almost. Not that she wanted to. It sounded like a tale of horrors but also mismatches. The pieces didn't quite fit. Sometimes, he talked about his older half-sisters as he would have about mothers. Other times, the mentions of his mother were those any boy of high birth would make to his mother, yet Larra got the feeling that his mother had died before he had left his home – which wasn't so. Sometimes, she could not distinguish between his eldest half-brother and his father, unless he specified. As to his full brother, the one who had abandoned him in their hour of need, Viserys never spoke his name. She did not truly want to know, did not want to get sucked into his world of darkness that made him wake up at night and read until dawn when he'd go to sleep like dead, as the slaves gossiped. Yet she couldn't avoid it – he lived with them and in the rare cases when he forget how he had arrived to this station in light, he was charming, lighting the world around with his smile. In those moments, Larra could see the man he'd turn into and was a little sorry that he wouldn't be around long enough for her to see him then. She did not know what her father had thought when he had bought the boy's custody but it certainly hadn't been just to have him lounge in the olive gardens and train at arms, and she was a little fearful for him, for with time, she had come to regard him with something akin to affection.
"When I get wed, you'll come to visit," she promised him one day and was surprised by the long look he gave her.
"Why aren't you spoken for yet?" he asked and she withdrew, shooting him a look of sudden, disturbed dislike. She had thought that she'd wed Sangralo Giarini of the black hair, that her father's purchase of Viserys' custody was a step in the fulfillment of this plan. But he was right, there was nothing official. And she was already eighteen.
"Sangralo?" her mother asked and gave her a look of disbelief when Larra dared to come to her. "You thought we'd wed you to a Lyseni? When we managed to secure a princess for your uncle?"
My uncle secured the princess all by himself, Larra thought dully. She had never met Aliandra Martell but she had heard enough to know this. But of course, she did not object to her mother. The heartbreak was too great. And of course, her mother didn't even see it. She was looking down at the household accounts again, as if Larra's question had been a vastly unimportant one. But just when the girl reached for the curtain separating her mother's solar from the bedchamber, the older woman said, "You'll be wed to a prince of Westeros. The Targaryen boy will take you to wife before the year is over."
I will not marry a child, Larra wanted to scream but didn't. At the end, she would do what her parents wanted, like she always had. Silently, she walked out of the solar, returned to her chambers, checked her pale hair in the looking-glass. The merchant would arrive soon with his fabrics and she had to look presentable. Besides, she had never been late.
"The purple velvet or the grey silk?" the old man asked when he saw that those two were what she was torn between, and Larra did not know but she knew it was very important that she chose, else her mother would make the choice for her.
"The grey silk," Viserys said from the archway leading off the courtyard and when Larra looked again, she saw he was right. The purple would complement her eyes but the pale grey would make them stand out, making their colour more intense. Had the boy learned this from his older sisters? Had he given them such opinions?
Viserys and the merchant both stared at her, aghast, when the first tears finally fell.