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Suns and Stars Both Light the Way
Chapter 4
Two days. That was the absolute limit that Elia had decided to allow herself before she made her decision. Every day that passed without a decisive statement that she was distancing herself and her children from Rhaegar's cause and claims was time that she could not recover. Soon, she'd have to leave for Sunspear anyway and then, the decision would be taken out of her hands and transferred into Doran's. She had let him and their mother choose her spouse twice – once successfully, once terrifyingly not so. She was not keen on tossing the coin for a third time.
She made her decision before the sun rose for the third time – when she headed for Edric's chamber and still hesitated before sliding next to him in bed. And then, she noticed that his dark eyes were open, although barely, and following her every movement, and her courage melted away as she remembered those nights, their first nights of caution, velvet, and fire. Now she knew enough to realize that she had been probably the most awkward girl Edric had bedded, ever, and her dutiful life with Rhaegar had taught her little beyond the ecstasy and shared joy that she had once started discovering with Edric. She had even forgotten this! What would he think?
He stirred and she thought he would move over to make room for her, hold out a hand in a silent invitation. Instead, he rose and turned toward the brightening windows. Elia gasped as the web of faint and fierce scars of cuts and wounds extended before her eyes. Somehow, she had never thought that the river would leave him with so many of these. His survival had truly been a miracle. She slowly touched a jagged curved line close to his side and he grimaced. "This one almost killed me," he said. "I still have no idea what I came across at in the water… but it obviously cut me all the way to the organs and then became infected. Your turn," he added when she was done tracing the marks on his body.
Elia hesitated. The three pregnancies had left their marks on her. She had been lucky that after the first time, nothing had been visible and Rhaegar had been so inept that he had been unable to tell a virgin from a woman who had already given birth – but now, no one could take her for anything other than what she was. A mother. She bravely reached for her robe and opened it.
He took a long look at the excess skin handing around her belly, the marks cutting it and her thighs like a web of blood. And slowly drew a hand across the marks, like she had done with him.
Behind the window, dark wings flew, carrying fate with them.
Mellario arrived at Sunspear unexpected and uninvited, just two days later, in time to attend the wedding… and voice any objections that Doran could have made. She did not.
"What matters," she said, "is that he's a man of his word. And that he loves you. He's as different from Rhaegar as he might be… what is Rhaegar doing now? How are the things going?"
"Still the same," Elia replied. "Yesterday, a missive came. He asks what we want in exchange for returning his precious Northern girl to him. I hope I'm able to use this letter as a proof that he has truly disinherited the children – he was quite clear who his heir was!"
"Let's hope it works…" Mellario said and hesitated. "It's a good thing that you're getting wed, Elia. A raven arrived at Sunspear. The new king demands of Doran to send you and the children back to King's Landing."
That was what Elia had expected but it still made her blood curdle. Her goodsister took her hand. "Doran won't do it, of course, rest assured," she said quickly. "But you must settle this with Baratheon, else you can never live in peace."
Elia knew it, yet even as she stared out the window and saw the men and women running about to make Starfall even lovelier for her wedding, she felt some new reluctance that had nothing to do with not diminishing her son's chances to ever come to the Iron Throne. "I know," she said tiredly and Mellario gave her a close look.
"Are these misgivings that I am hearing?"
"Not about the man," Elia replied immediately. "I wanted to wed Edric. I still do. But the marriage itself… I am not sure. These few weeks that I spent here… I had almost forgotten what it felt like to be listened to and respected because of who I am and not whom I have wed. And I truly enjoyed not being subjected to a husband, be it in bed or at the table." She sighed. "I've never envied Doran his place in Dorne, you know. But as infatuated as he is with you, the balance of power even in your marriage is tilted too much in his favour, is it not? It was different with my parents."
To this, Mellario had nothing to say and Elia thought, ungraciously, that she could have done without reminding herself that even love matches did not guarantee happiness. How well did she know Edric after all these years?
She wed Edric in a bright sunlit day, with the sky and sea both blue and white, and sparlking like her wedding gown that the seamstresses at Starfall had worked day and night to prepare. It was white, on Elia's wish – she wanted to challenge everyone who dared claim that she was not as pure as the white snow that only those who had traveled north had seen. The Torentine rippled and whispered and it was hard to believe that this was the same fierce river that had once put an end on Elia and Edric's married life before it had even started.
Aegon had chosen this day to start walking and his nursemaid had to leave the sept soon enough since he, with increasing excitement, had discovered the art of staggering about this pair of feet or that gown and tugging at them, only to smile beautifully at the annoyed faces looking down at him. Thankfully, Rhaenys slept through the entire ceremony but Allyria watched everything, wide-eyed.
"I've never seen a more curious child, yet she keeps her questions to herself until she can find the answers or feels it's the right moment to ask the question," Edric commented later and laughed. "You know what? She reminds me of you."
How these words echoed in Elia's heart! Fortunately, he did not see anything out of order because despite her expectations that it would be all an affair of prudence, she was overwhelmed by happiness, fear, tears, and all things a bride usually experienced. This stupid heart of hers did not care about the particulars.
"It feels strange, doesn't it?" Larra Blackmont said as the two of them walked together in the gardens to get away from the feast for a while. "I mean, some five years ago, we were planning on decorations of this very castle for your wedding and here we are, five years later. It feels like the Seven have been sleeping."
"Sometimes," Elia said softly, "I think they must truly have…"
She looked at the hall where Edric was. Her husband. Her husband! How was she to believe that the last five years had truly taken place? Sometimes, she could only do so when she heard Rhaenys and Aegon's voices. When she looked at the lamps ready to be lit as soon as twilight descended, at the heaps of flowers adorning every corner of every hall and yard, at her oldest friends from this part of Dorne and everyone in the castle dressed to look their best – how could she not? And yet, even now reality was making a timid attempt to settle back. Elia was so happy that Larra and the rest of them had come, else Edric would have been surrounded by people who loved him while she would have only had Lewyn and Mellario. Anger rose quick and fierce because even this was Rhaegar's fault. A Dornish princess deserved to have a glorious wedding if she so chose. Not that Elia would have necessarily wanted one but she would have liked to have the choice. Instead, she had to go with what she had – with the woman Rhaegar had replaced her with watching, her nose pressed against the glass of her window, lest she missed something! Elia had little doubt that the blasted girl would report to Rhaegar as soon as she saw him. Not that she knew she would see him at all, of course. The decision had been quite a recent one and a little more life in the dark had not killed anyone. Unless they were called Brandon Stark, of course.
"I hope the two of you are very happy," Ashara said sincerely when Elia sat down next to her.
Feeling the sad envy in her voice, Elia hugged her. "Very soon, it will be your turn, dearest," she said. "And your wedding gown will be just as lovely, I promise you."
Ashara had risen and fallen with her, this was the fate of ladies in-waiting. Elia would do anything to help the girl rebound from the drabness called life at court!
"I'll miss you," Ashara said. "Are you sure I cannot come with you?"
Edric and Elia shared an exasperated look. "No," he said with the weary air of man who had said the same things many times over. "Elia doesn't need lady companions for this. And there is still a war, Ashara! I am not pushing you in their hands and that's it."
She looked about to object but her father, her mother, her grandmother were all giving her a stern look, so she kept silent.
"When are you leaving?" she asked finally.
"As soon as the Stark girl does," Edric replied.
It was a good thing that the two of them had celebrated their wedding night in advance because when it was time for the real thing, Edric spent it unconscious, in the grip of yet another one of his terrible headaches. Lady Dayne tried to lead Elia away but she shook her off without saying a word. Now, she could see what he had meant when he had said that this time, he was entering the marriage with health troubles that could create far more problems than her own. These headaches could and did come without warning, at moments most inconvenient, and left him dead to the world.
"He won't die," Arthur said calmly when he entered late in this wedding night. "And over time, we'll get used to it."
She had the feeling that he was trying to convince himself as much as her. "It's hard for you as well, is it not?" she asked, suddenly realizing for how long they had not spoken of anything truly important, save for Rhaegar's plans, of course. In fact, nothing that was not about Rhaegar and without Rhaegar being there.
He was staring down at the bed and Elia marveled at the hypocrisy that was the Kingsguard. The bond was there, yes, yet how could anyone believe that when saying Brother to one of those men, Arthur had put in the same meaning as he had when addressing his real brother. He could have called them Ser Nobody, to the same effect.
"You were not the only one whose life has been shaken to the core, Princess," he said.
For the first time, she realized how terrible he looked. Gaunter. Suffering from insomnia. He had always been pale-skinned but with the healthy darker sprinkle that helped him not to burn each time he went out into the Dornish sun. Now, he had lost this. But when he looked at her, it was the old daring smile that she was met with.
"We will survive," she vowed and he nodded, then laughed.
"I would think so! I survived for three days when eating with one hand and writing with the other, did I not?"
"Writing?" Her curiosity arose. "The letter you sent Rhaegar and copied for the most important lords in the realm? I never saw it."
He looked surprised, then nodded. "I never came around to give Edric one. Very well, I'll give you a copy. But not now. I only came to tell you that they're leaving with the night tide. Do you want to talk to them? You won't have another chance, you know."
For a moment, Elia hesitated. Talk to them? What use would there be? Talk to two men whom she barely knew and to whom she had been only duty and now was not even that? Demean herself to ask an explanation of Lyanna Stark?
"No," she said slowly and looked at Edric. He was breathing more easily now and her fears had alleviated somewhat. He would live. But he had no idea that she was here. It would make no difference to him if she was not. "But I'll come to see them leave."
She wanted to make sure that they were gone. A Lyanna Stark at Dragonstone meant that all the realm would see that Elia and her children meant nothing for Rhaegar now. But the girl had this habit of forcing herself back into Elia's life quite uninvited. Elia wanted to see her gone.
Her goodmother – goodmother, Elia could hardly believe it – came with a warm cloak. It got quite cold here at night. A few guards fell in step behind them as they walked toward the harbor under the castle where a dark ship was rocking over the waves, as dark as the attires of the ones being led towards it. No more white cloaks for them, for now, at least. Elia felt a rush of deep, vindictive joy, utterly inappropriate for such a small and temporary detail.
Gerold Hightower and Oswell Whent went past her without looking. They knew what they had helped Rhaegar do had been cruel and unfair and did not want to face her. Lyanna Stark, though, did not do Elia the favour of just passing by. On the contrary, she looked around, looked for her and when she saw her, she ran for her as best as the enormous belly would let her. Elia stared at her, stunned and horrified, with the only thought that this woman might reach out and touch her.
"Is it true?" Lyanna asked urgently, her eyes deep and desperate. "Are they truly dead? Is this not a lie?"
Elia stared at her. The moon turned the girl's face ghastly white. Only those eyes, deep and grey, lived, filled with desperate fear, and Elia felt sick at the realization of how pitiful this girl who had been so boldly different and indifferent at Harrenhall had become. She wanted to believe that the men who had been guarding her, the man that she had run away with had chosen to be cruel to her, lie to her that her father and brother were still alive, just to relish her suffering, when the Starks were, in fact, well and safe, and she had no one else to demand a confirmation for this desperate theory but her, the woman that she had disdained and robbed so.
"Is it a lie?" Lyanna insisted, and Lord Dayne shook his head impatiently.
"We don't have the time for such nonsense," he snapped and then, the girl threw her head back and her voice echoed in the night lie a prolonged wolf howl, "Is it a lie?!
