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Suns and Stars Both Light the Way

Chapter 3

"They can't even crown him," Elia breathed when the news of the last development reached Starfalls on swift wings mere weeks after the Battle of the Trident. "Not while Aerys still lives."

"They can't, indeed," Lord Dayne agreed and looked at Lewyn. "You've been awfully silent, old friend. Am I to understand that you regret Arryn's caution?"

Lewyn laughed, incredulous. "And you can still ask! Did you miss the part where Aerys was about to burn the entire King's Landing? Preventing Rhaegar from being crowned is a good thing and all that but what if they somehow manage to free Aerys? What would stop their loyalist to continue the fight in his name?"

"Common sense?" Ulrick Dayne suggested but Lewyn's look made him rethink. "Very well, let's say that the Targaryen madness is showing in me and leave it at this."

"Don't jape about this, Ulrick," Lewyn said sharply. "Do not."

Ulrick gave him a long look and then looked at Arthur and Elia. "I am not sure I want to know what the three of you have seen," he finally said.

A wise man, he was. Elia quickly returned to the problem at hand. "So, Rhaegar has retreated to Dragonstone with the remaining fleet?"

"It looks like this," Lord Dayne confirmed. "If he has some common sense left, he will understand that he cannot win now. He will only waste what he still has. He should go to Essos and turn this fleet into the core of the army he should gather…"

"Are you going to apply for his chief strategist, my lord?" Elia snapped. It was waste of time to think of what Rhaegar should do rationally. Rationality had never been his guiding star. "I am telling you that he will fight to the bitter end."

He sighed. "He can't be this deluded, Princess. He…"

"Are my children going to grow up?" she asked directly. "If you're all so sure that Robert Baratheon will keep the throne?"

None of the people in the room was willing to give her false assurances. "Their chances are far better now, thanks to their father," Lord Dayne finally said. "And Robert Baratheon was finally convinced to leave even Aerys alive. We will do everything to protect them, my lady. Actually, I would have been more concerned about their lives if Rhaegar had triumphed."

It made Elia sick to consider it but it was true. Aegon would have always been a threat to Lyanna Stark's sons. Now, the greatest threat had been redirected to the child Lyanna herself was carrying but Elia still saw red at the thought that her children's father had willingly risked their very lives like this, in addition to leaving them in the deadly company of his own father – to win Dorne's support for his new child!

"I will go to King's Landing," she finally said. "I will fall at his feet. I'll wipe his boots with my hair if I must! He will take pity of me and my children. He has to."

"The danger will be greatly diminished," Edric said with carefully level voice, "if you are already wed at this time, to someone who isn't in the position to press any claims on Aegon's part."

Elia wanted to scream. It was true, it was reasonable, it was her heart's desire… it was also impossible.


"Why is it impossible?" Edric asked as casually as if they were discussing the weather when she told him, as soon as they were alone.

"Because it won't be fair to you. Has Arthur told you the reason Rhaegar left me?"

Edric raised an eyebrow. "He keeps certain confidences confidential. Have you done something this very bad, Elia? Something that exonerates your husband in treating you like this? I have to admit it's hard for me to imagine what it might be."

She laughed harshly. "In Rhaegar's eyes? Yes. I had the insolence to become barren at Aegon's birth. I could not give him more children… and I can't give you children either. If you wed me, you'll only have to raise Rhaegar's children… because I will not let anyone take them away from me, Edric. I won't."

For a moment, the stunned pain on his face was too much for her. But he got his bearing soon enough. "How do you know?" he asked. "How could anyone know? As far as I know, no one can make such an assessment in the immediate aftermath of a birthing bed."

"No, they said…" Elia started and then fell silent. It had never occurred to her before that no one, no one could have possibly known. What machinations had been going there behind her back? Was it the maesters? Or Rhaegar? She had never heard this from a maester, never. Had Rhaegar made it up so he could get rid of her more easily?

However, the extent of Rhaegar's betrayal was not her focus now, Edric was. A marriage to him would give her all she wanted – and burden him with loads of troubles. "I won't even say that it might be dangerous for you to wed me," she said. "You already know it. But you must understand something, Edric. Even if someone spoke without knowing, it's still possible that I am truly barren now. Aegon's birth was so hard that everyone thought I would die."

"Save for Ashara, as I hear," he said almost light-heartedly but his eyes were serious. "Elia, I was dead and I came back. Such things change a man profoundly. I don't care about inheritance and such things. There are enough Daynes around to carry the family name."

Elia swallowed. He had not mentioned that he did not care if he would have children of his own and as much as she appreciated his unwillingness to lie to her, she would have liked to have heard and believed it – but only if it was true. Which it clearly was not. She fought the temptation to tell him that It should not matter, that the two of them had a child already. Which would only make him hurt like she did.

Fear for the children vied with fear of him turning away from her in a number of years. She looked away. "May I have some time to think?" she asked.

"I am ready to give you all the time you want," he said. "Not everyone will be."


She could not sleep. Instead, she paced and paced around in her bedchamber, wondering if Lyanna Stark was the only other person awake. With insomnia plaguing her, she had noticed that the other woman's chamber never stayed unlit, no matter how late at night it was. Elia supposed that Lyanna had trouble sleeping as well, apart from the babe probably being more active at night.

On her part, she could not say what she feared most. The new King. Edric stopping loving her. Her children turning out to be like Aerys and perhaps Rhaegar. Her not daring to grasp her chance. Edric realizing that one of the reasons she refused was the fact that should she wed him, she would lessen Aegon's chances to ascend to the Iron Throne even more, although now, at this very moment, a new dynasty was being established and she did not want for her son to become King. Yet she was afraid of damaging his chances.

"A man can be happy without being King," a woman spoke when Elia transferred her pacing to the terrace opening to all the chambers on this side of the floor, and indicated that the young woman should take a seat on the chair next to her and breathe the enticing aroma of night flowers. "Thousands of men are."

"But they were not born in the royal line and deprived of their rights through no fault of their own."

"I know. I feel like I have spoken these same words…"

"About Lord Ulrick?"

The old Rhae Dayne, princess of House Targaryen, gave her a long look but did not press the matter further. Her purple eyes shone in the moonlight like twin stars. "It is for the best, Elia. We Targaryens are dangerous and we feed our madness when we're around each other. I don't like it and I can't explain it but I know it to be true. I think we carry not only the might of Valyria but also its taint. And we feed it in each other. Away from King's Landing, your Aegon will have the chance to be the man he was truly meant to be, without the burden of all these expectations good and bad."

"Is this why you rarely visited King's Landing after your father's death?" Elia asked.

Rhae nodded. "I put an end to it before my children could be infected. Sometimes, an end is something good."

Elia stared at her. "You're talking as if you approve what all of them did. The rebels."

Rhae laughed bitterly. "I hate what they did," she said. "Even if it was for the best of the realm… in which I am not sure at all yet."

"I am no longer sure in anything either," Elia said quietly. "I am not even sure that I love Edric or that he loves me. What if we're both in love with a memory?"

The dowager Lady Dayne shook her head. "Then, I'd have you both get over your insecurities, one way or another, before all dreams you have ever had for your children become the most recent memory in your life."


The chamber at the top floor of the Snake Tower smelled of fresh paint and horror. Elia shivered when she stood before the only wall that had not been painted white recently. What shades of Edric's dreams did these white layers conceal? Even when they had been betrothed, he had poured out those in his painting, not in front of her. But now, she saw something that was undoubtedly… dragons. And a woman, as silver-haired as the Queen, riding on the back of misery and dread, flames racing around her, burning through her without even singeing her. By the Seven, chasing dragons had been Rhaegar's madness, not Edric's! She quickly looked away, only to be confronted with something that to her foolish heart was even worse. A thick piece of wood – Edric had told her about the new techniques of painting over wood that he had learned in Essos. He had failed to mention the objects that he had painted, though, and this one made her ground her teeth. A young woman, her black hair curling over her shoulders, emerging from the sea wrapped in a see-through veil alone. The droplets shone off her dark skin, so real that Elia could almost touch them. The green-eyed monster worked its vile sorcery on her and she grounded her teeth. There was no doubt that Edric had not only painted the lady but also bedded her. Elia wanted to set the piece to fire but she was not Aerys to burn things just because they displeased her! Determinedly, she turned her back at the painting, looked at the walls of the chamber given to Edric to use when he needed to let his dreams come out without sounding mad, and wished that she could paint a new start for herself, for him, for her children this easily.

Instead, they were burdened with the fear for Rhaenys and Aegon's future, the reality about the child that he did not even know they had, and the danger that would come when the new rulers realized that Lyanna Stark was at Starfall because no matter what, they could not just throw her out. The girl was so far along that she could easily give birth on the road while looking for Rhaegar… or die trying to.

Perhaps they could send her to King's Landing. Let her brother and former betrothed deal with her. It was none of Elia's concern. But if they did, it would become clear that they had been keeping her at Starfall – and this could make the new strong men in the realm suspect partiality to Rhaegar's action.

As hard as she tried, Elia could not see a good way to solve the situation – and neither could anyone else.