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Suns and Stars Both Light the Way
Chapter 2
The first night was the hardest. Grief and humiliation had squeezed her in a grip so tight that she could see nothing, hear nothing but her children's whimpers. They were not accustomed to a ship and they felt her agitation. Finally, she was forced to leave the cabin because the unrest she caused just by being there was too much. The nursemaids would do a better job without her here to hinder them.
The moon was beautiful tonight. Elia only noticed it after hours had passed with tears running silently down her cheeks, the open air so salty that the tracks immediately dissolved into the general stickiness of her skin. This way, she could pretend that she was not crying at all and that was what she did when Edric finally came close and she startled, ashamed. Weeping over a man who had tossed her and his children aside? That was what Edric would think, for sure, and she could never explain that it was not for Rhaegar that she was crying. Anyway, it was humiliating for her as a woman and for a daughter of Dorne to waste precious water on anything related to such a creature was more than humiliating. It was simply irresponsible of her, it equaled treason.
Fortunately, Edric did not try to engage her in a conversation. He just stood next to her, gazing out in the night, and after a while, Elia felt calmer. It was then that she noticed the beauty of the night, the thrill of the sea air. She had always liked it because it had been the first air of adventure that she had ever smelled in her life but she truly loved feeling it not because she loved it. She had always loved watching him breathe it.
They had enjoyed some very different things but they had enjoyed them together. After that night of flood and horror, she had been unable to take sea air in if not forced. She had even traveled for her wedding on land, longer and more cumbersome as it had been. But now, with him here, despite everything she felt a flicker of joy. Her onetime love of the breath of sea had returned.
"I have always loved the almost full moon," she heard herself say. "It brings out the stars most fully, don't you think?"
Without saying anything, he opened his cloak and wrapped her in. Only when she felt the beating of his heart and started shaking, Elia realized how close she had been to the state when one no longer could generate warmth on their own, the state that almost always ended in death.
On the second day of their journey, Elia learned that they would not go down the route to Sunspear. "This is where we'll be expected to go," Edric said briefly. "And I am sorry to say it, Elia, but once your absence is discovered, it will be the routes to Sunspear that they will look for you. If you insist on going there, we will, of course, but… in your shoes, I'd rather not have taken the risk."
"Then, I won't either," Elia said, wondering if he would pursue the ambition that he had never kept hidden, leading the Dornish fleet one day. He knew more than most about sea routes and currents but this was true for many others. Once, he had been fiercely competitive. Was he still?
Aegon stirred in her arms and Edric stared at him with strange expression. Elia knew that in her son's features, there was not the slightest resemblance to her but he was her child. Was it her babe that Edric was seeing, or the man who had had her? Even Aegon's own father did not cherish him. Why would Edric?
At the end, she did not dare ask.
Ashara ran to meet them the moment their boat approached the shore. Her gown became wet in the waves but she did not seem to notice. Both women wept with joy and relief and for the first time, Elia felt safe.
"Do not squirm so!" Edric said sharply and Elia looked up, alarmed. Was he snapping at Rhaenys whom he was carrying because she was squirming dangerously in his arms and he could drop her, or because he was angry with her? Angry with a little girl? But then she saw the concentration with which the captain carried Aegon and felt guilty for her immediate suspicion.
In the white castle, Lady Dayne curtsied as if Elia was still a princess… which she was, of course. She was still a princess of Dorne and this, no one could take from her, ever. The woman's eyes, still slightly squinted when she was trying to see clear even when the object was close enough and the sun was not blazing nearly as blindingly as it did in the desert, were keen and so very black. Qorgyle's eyes, born and trained to use in the desert. No one could take that from Lady Amira, not more than a half life spent in the coolness and relatively mild sun at the shores of the Torentine. Elia was startled to realize just how much she had let the North take from her. Suddenly, Rhaegar's behavior became more understandable to her, although not an ounce more forgivable. How could she have expected of him to respect her when she had unwittingly given up on her own self-respect? Embroiled in the battles around the Iron Throne and Rhaegar's moods, she had pushed her own second. Somewhere along the way, she had lost Elia of Dorne and he must have felt this weakness of hers. He had an inane gift for smelling people's weaknesses.
And then, another pair of black eyes made the breath freeze in her breast. Allyria was staring at her with curiosity and a little fear, probably struck with awe at seeing a true princess. Perhaps she thought Elia was still the future queen – no one would have discussed such matters in the presence of a child. Of course, Elia knew that the Daynes had been slow to send Allyria to the Water Gardens, although she would go when she turned six – not sending her at all might lead to bigger problems than taking the risk to send her. Not that any problems were evident in her. She looked intelligent, with the dark Qorgyle skin and the fair Dayne hair, much like Lady Amira… and Edric.
Yes, six was a good age. Elia swallowed, realizing that she was trying to avoid the most pressing issue of all – to find her voice and say something. Fortunately, Lady Dayne took Allyria by the hand and accompanied the formal introductions with the note that the Princess was tired and needed her rest. Elia nodded gratefully, although she desperately longed to hear the child's voice.
As she crossed the open gallery on the second floor to the rooms she would stay in, something made her stop dead in her tracks. Something like prickling on her skin, uncomfortable sensation that she was being splashed with something unclean. She looked up and left, at the angle under which the two wings met. Lyanna Stark – no, she was Lyanna Targaryen now, was she not? – froze, her hand staying on the window that she had clearly been about to slam. The two of them stared at each other, separated only by a glass that was washed so clear that it could be invisible, yet if the two of them extended their arms to touch, blood would gush from both of them and stain the beautiful white walls, all the way down to the courtyard.
Even Elia had not looked this bad when she had been carrying her children. Lyanna had lost all of her slender grace that gave certain beauty to her irregular features. It did not matter how far along she was, she should not look this swollen. Retained water, in all probability. Face drained of all colour. Had she just thrown up her meal? Ticks twisting her face every few seconds or so. Elia took notice of these changes without malice but without the sympathy she felt when she saw a woman struggling with this state either. She looked at Lady Dayne. "How has she been behaving?"
"Arrogantly," her hostess replied. "She threatens and insists that we let her go, as if she believes that her precious Rhaegar holds some authority here. I think she hopes to make us forget the fact that all the castle can hear her in her fits of weeping and anger. In these moments, I wish I could let Rhaegar in. It will save both sides in this war a lot of effort. She will get the job done as well as any man. She is furious at him for making a fool out of her and at herself, even more. For falling for his words, you know."
Elia almost laughed. Rhaegar had rejected her to replace her with her! Threaten Elia Martell's position and life, and she would put up a good fight; aim at her family, pride and self-respect, and she would drop down dead. The girl he had chosen was not so different, it seemed. She would love to see Rhaegar and Lyanna's married life in, say, a year, if not for the fact that the very thought of these few made her gorge rise. Determinedly, she turned her back on the window.
"What happened?" she asked when Arthur entered her solar with the face of a man preferring to see Aerys in one of his fits, rather than her.
"I have no idea," he said honestly. "He started going mad at Harrenhall, I think. Before this, he was always livid if I let a blow slide by or something because of my vow not to hurt him; at the tourney, he did not even realize that I had fought under my abilities."
Elia nodded. She had always wondered why the Kingsguard faced members of the royal family at all when they were disadvantaged from the start… and she had been equally stunned to realize that Rhaegar truly thought he had won fairly and squarely.
"I was not enthused about this Stark thing from the very beginning," Arthur went on. "It looks like Rhaegar knew more than he let on because I was the only one who was surprised when he produced his ridiculous piece of paper with the High Fool's signature on it. Of course, at the time we were so removed from any place of habitation that he thought I would just go with his orders and my duty because it wasn't as if I had this many options."
"But you still found some," Elia said, almost absent-mindedly, because Edric had suddenly turned quite pale – his bronze skin had literally changed to white in the blink of an eye.
Arthur smiled. "There was a fact that he and my so-called brothers had overlooked. This tower of joy was in Dornish territory. They were on my territory… and my squire's."
If it was up to Elia, she would knight young Olyvar Jordayne on the spot. He might have just saved her children's lives.
Suddenly, Arthur sprang up.
Edric was lying prostrate on the floor, not reacting to their shouts or even the slap Arthur delivered on his cheek that immediately turned blue. For a moment, they thought he had died for real this time – Arthur who had heard about his brother's trouble and Elia who knew nothing at all.
"Take him to bed," Lady Dayne ordered when the scared servants summoned her. "He will be all right," she assured Elia, although her own face was just as white as her son's. "He's just suffering one of the headaches that he told me about the second day after his miraculous return, to not let me go scared when it happened. You mean he did not tell you?"
Silently, Elia shook her head. She's ask him when he awoke. But she already knew that he would never be a great sea captain, no more than she would be a future Queen.
But when he opened his eyes, he looked so exhausted that she did not have the heart to ask why he had hidden his weakness from her when he had seen hers. She only took his hand as he had taken hers. "I'll wait here," she said and he smiled. They both knew what she would be waiting – the battle that would determine what the name of the next Lord of the Seven Kingdoms would be.
"Not Rhaegar Targaryen," Elia whispered with vicious joy when the black wings carried over the news of her husband's defeat and fleeing from the battlefield, of his trying to still consolidate his remaining forces, of Tywin Lannister declaring for the rebels, finally.
Unwittingly, Rhaegar might have just done her and the children that he had bastardized the greatest favour of all, putting his beloved Lyanna Stark in the danger that would have else been meant for them instead.
