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Suns and Storms

Choice

"Mikkel, I decided to go back to Sunspear."

Arianne's voice was soft and tired, and as dejected as he had never heard it before. Her appearance was no better: her eyes were sunken, her skin ashen, her hair unwashed in days. At least her clothes didn't smell, for her chambermaid knew how to be insistent that she'd be allowed to wash and change her mistress.

They sat on a small terrace overlooking the sea. Arianne stared at the glistening path the moon drew across it and remembered how she had once dreamed of walking on it, going to the other end of the world down it. With the boy who would later become her husband, of course. She had been without Alric for prolonged periods of time when children and she had always been grumpy and waiting for him to come back.

"I am glad," her goodbrother said simply.

Arianne did not take offense, she knew what he meant. She had spent here almost two weeks, looking at Alric deteriorating before her eyes. As much as she hated it, at the end she had to admit the reality of the situation: her being there worsened his condition, for despite his weakened state his feelings were still strong enough: jealousy, anger, offense, humiliation. And her presence would not let them fade. On the contrary, it seemed to feed them – and anxiety made his physical state worse. As if it wasn't already! She had sat through some of the treatment sessions, making use of the fact that he wouldn't tell her to leave when there were others present and she had heard what the maester told him: to rest and avoid any agitation. Now, Arianne was such an agitation.

But it turned out that she had not yet seen all of his ailments. She had not been prepared for the vomiting of blood that she saw on her second day here. When pressed hard, Arel Dayne, Alric's young page, mentioned about a rock thrown from the besieged embankment that had pressed his lord hard. He had lain beneath it for hours before they were able to pull him back.

"He needs to gain some weight," the maester said repeatedly. "His general weakness of the body is the reason the wound in his shoulder won't close, as well. There is no reason for it not to."

But how could it happen when Alric nearly retched at the very mention of any food?

"Take care of him," Arianne said now. "I hope he gets better now, when I am no longer here to annoy him."

Mikkel nodded and looked aside, lest she caught his eye and saw pity there – the very thing that she could never forgive. He could not decide whether he felt greater anger or pity of those two and their bizarre games. At the end, the price had turned out to be too high. And it could become higher yet, for Alric could still die from his external and internal wounds if starvation didn't finish him off first. Mikkel was just as stunned and sad as Arianne to see this pale shadow, now bed-bound and forbidden to rise even to use the privy. And he supposed she felt even more wretched because she sickened Alric more with her very presence and attempts to make things right. People had started whispering that if he did die, she might soon follow, that she might not be able to live without him. But Mikkel knew better. She could live without Alric. She just didn't want to, yet she had to leave in the hope of keeping him alive and improving.

"He'll always be well cared for here," he said. "And I'll keep you informed."

The moon silvered him even more, enhancing his handsomeness into unnatural perfection. Arianne shivered at the sudden feeling that she was the most flawed human being alive. Of course, she knew it was not true but it felt like it. She needed to make a choice that might destabilize Dorne… or cost her husband his health and life. She had never thought it might come to this. She had to leave, yet she realized that by leaving, she'd further the rumours of her estrangement from Alric, of a potential replacing him with a new, younger version, of a rift between herself and Mikkel who was her staunchest supporter and most valuable advisor.

But if she stayed, the tension could kill Alric.

She had always chosen Dorne. But not this time. He'll get better, she thought. And then Dorne will calm down again by seeing that we are together and will stay together.

That idea that was by no means certainty was the only thing that could carry her through. She nodded and rose. "I'll go to my chamber, then," she said with the bitter thought that for first time in their marriage and countless visits to Salt Shore, she had a bedchamber of her own now. People had been quite scandalized when Alric had kept sleeping in their marital bed till the last night before each of their children's births, or at least each birth he had been there to see. Thinking of it now, Arianne realized that the usual concerns of women who didn't like their husbands seeing them in the last stage of pregnancy had never bothered her. She had always loved him rubbing her back and feet. The idea that he might be disenchanted with her swollen belly, engorged breasts, thickened thighs, and fiery stretchmarks from chest to knees, let alone the brown spots on her skin, had never entered her consideration. But there was this wall between them now and it manifested itself in the form of different bedchambers. Of course, it could be passed as concern on her part of disturbing his rest but everyone in the castle was aware of what it was.

Instead of heading for her bed, Arianne went to find the one whose opinion mattered than anyone else.

"So, when are you leaving?" Doran asked, still standing at the window, staring at the stars.

Arianne smiled despite herself: with every passing day, her son started to resemble her more. She was not surprised that he had gleaned her intention off; in his place, she would have known, too. "Tomorrow morning."

Now he turned to look her fully in the face. "I think that's the best decision you can make," he said casually, answering to the unspoken question in her eyes. Unfortunately, that only made a new one arise.

"Have you heard what people are saying?" she asked.

He didn't try to dodge the question. "I have."

Arianne slowly nodded. "So have I. I never thought that one day I'd care."

"Do you?" Doran asked and she caught the faint note of sarcasm quite distinctly.

"Now?" she asked. "Yes."

She had always cared. She had never been given the chance not to. But until now, people's opinion had never held the power to influence her own, private life. She and Alric had been above such things. It even suited their agenda to be seen as two different heads of the same two-headed beast: the kind, rational, and even meek one and the wild, mercurial and uncontrollable one. Such a clear distinction made them exercise power in a way that was most efficient. But now it looked like the beast could be cut in two, the heads separated. The thought of it made her feel hollow inside.

"Let them talk," Doran said. "Things can't really get any worse, can they?"

She blushed and looked aside, remembering all too late that he had hinted quite clearly at her that according to him, she was playing a dangerous game. She had just chosen not to listen, too busy and tired to make changes in a life that suited her. He's grown up, she thought, with pride and some bafflement. He could now make the distinction between being truly infatuated and being too careless to notice that you were going too far. He had appraised the situation as it was and deemed it dangerous. With his downright, albeit polite dismissing of Artos, he had set an example she really should have followed! If her son had chosen this way of showing his opinion, she should have interpreted it the right way, with all due seriouness. After all, Doran had taken this way of hints, tactfulness, and veiled suggestions from her, not Alric.

"My being here makes him sicker," she said, suddenly desperate to make sure that he knew she wasn't careless this time around.

Doran moved away from the window, sat on his bed and motioned her at the settee. "I know," he said. "You forget, I am not allowed in either."

He was deliberately misrepresenting the situation. When he feels better, he invites you in. I am never desired in his chamber.

She made a step for the settee, changed her mind and stopped. "I'll be waiting for you in Sunspear," she said. "Both of you."

"I'll be there," he said and Arianne decided that she'd rather not know whether he meant that according to him, his father would never forgive her, or simply that he didn't think Alric would ever recover fully. Doran had been in King's Landing, in his grandfather's solar when Alor Gargalen had suffered the devastating stroke that had left him all but an empty shell. No, that's not right. He lost his control over his body, yet his mind was as strong as ever. "He became a prisoner of his own flesh", Doran had once told her in one of his very rare moments when he talked about it. Arianne would prefer a quick death over such a life… if it was about her. But Alric? With horror and shame, she realized that she'd do everything in her power to keep him alive, even if his life was nothing like a real one, even if he would prefer death. So great was her selfishness. She looked aside, scared that her son would see it and disdain her.

In Alric's bedchamber, he was still awake with a book on the cover next to him. Arianne noticed the small piece of bright blue cloth at the coffer and the dark stain on it, the same in colour as the tiny dots on the binding of the book. She already knew that should she look under the bed, she'd find a basin full of congealed dark-brownish blood mixed with small pieces of the little food Alric had managed to eat. He looked at her, silently, and as she went near the bed, she felt a mix of concern and relief that she knew well by now. His silence wasn't a hostile one, it was bred by pain and exhaustion. Without hesitation, she carefully seated herself on the edge of the bed and reached for the hand he left in hers willingly.

For a while, she said nothing, just held his hand.

"Are you thirsty?" she finally asked and without waiting for him to answer, rose and went to the table, to return with a goblet of iced water spiced with lemon juice. "Slowly," she warned as he sipped. After a few gulps, she withdrew the goblet and took it back to the table. He followed her movements with his eyes.

"I'm leaving tomorrow," Arianne said when the last candle went down. They were now sitting in darkness and she was glad that she couldn't see whether his expression was one of disgruntlement or relief. "I don't want you to get any worse."

As much as she cherished moments like this, for they showed that beneath the pain, humiliation, jealousy, and betrayal he still hadn't severed the tie between them, she could never delight in the fact that his physical pain was so excruciating that it was capable of swallowing his bitterness towards her and making him long for her nearness.

"Good," he said and there was no cruelty in his voice, just sad wonder at the situation they had let themselves come to. He's scared, as well, Arianne thought, scared that he won't be able to forgive me, that we'll never be able to regain what we had. Without her, he'd lose the entire foundation his life had been built upon. Why had he been taken from his home many years before boys were usually sent for fostering if not to be prepared for his new life? His life with her. That was what he had been taught in the formative years children get their first sense of their own worth: that he was tied to her, that his main goals should always be in line with hers, that she was his fate. And I was taught that he was mine, as well. Since they had grown up together and had each other long before Dorne widened beyond the expanse of Sunspear, the Water Gardens, and the lands they saw through the annual progressions of the princely household, they had felt that they belonged with each other at the time they still didn't know what politics was. We've been wed for twenty years, sharing bed for two more. We have three children and lost two. We've been united in our scandalous view of marriage. We've been friends and lovers, and each other's heart for as long as I can remember. We're so entangled in this web that nothing can set us free – not a separation, not death. The Seven help us, Alric, we have to find a way to overcome this, for we'll forever be bound to each other. I won't be able to bear a tie of indifference and I don't think you'll be able either. She firmly resisted any sneaking thought that it might not come to this, that he might not live or recover enough to feel indifferent to her. She just sat there, holding his hand, as he finally sank into the blissful oblivion of sleep.

Arianne was still there when the dawn stretched long rosy fingers and danced around the room, its soft caress turning Alric almost into the man who had left Sunspear more than a year ago.