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PART ONE
Throne
... ... ...
~280 AC~
The summons came not by raven, but by human messenger.
He arrived in the dead of night, sweat-streaked horse and grim face belying the haste of travel, and bearing a single scroll. The seal bore the mark belonging to the Hand of the King. The orders contained within succinct and to the point – the same as so many other commands issued of late.
Come, swear fealty, face judgment...or die.
Perhaps die even still.
When the steward came to wake her, it was to find Visaera already out of bed. She stood at the open window staring out at the cliffs, neither shocked nor chagrined.
She had been dreaming again.
Dreams of fire, of metal, and of violet eyes. Dreams of blood.
"Please wake Lord Connington and inform him that I will be leaving for King's Landing today."
"Today, My Lady?" the steward repeated, pausing inside the doorway. "Would tomorrow not be better? More time to prepare…"
His words drifted to silence at the slow shake of her head. "It must be today."
"Very well."
"Thank you, Marten."
With a respectful incline of his head, the man retreated into the hall, leaving Visaera to continue to gaze out at the cragged, formidable cliffs framing Shipbreaker Bay, from the heights which cut jagged bites from the sky to where the water beat itself into a white froth below. She could not have said why she felt with such conviction that she would never come back to this place that had been home for the better part of her life.
She did not believe she would be riding to her death come dawn. But there were so many thing far worse than death, and she could not be sure.
The dreams had not told her of what to be afraid, only that she should be.
...
Above all things, Arthur would have been able to remember the tension thick as clay within the room; the hushed, nervous movements of the court stirring the oppressive quiet as they waited. He surveyed the small crowd packed within the chamber from his place flanking the throne of a thousand blades, wondering, no doubt as they all were, how the day would end.
It was not the first time a royal summons had been sent to call a member of one of the high families to bend the knee and convince the King to allow them life. Nor was it the fifth. Or even the tenth.
The last had ended with an execution. With screams, and with blades, and with the King's cruel laughter. But then, the last time had not involved someone of the King's own blood. Not that this would protect the Lady. In fact, it was more likely the thing which would seal her fate.
She had been conceived during the last Blackfyre Rebellion. It was said that while the former Lord of Storm's End lay dying in the arms of his son, the Pretender – sword still wet with his blood – went to Lady Rhaelle, raped her, and sired a daughter. Aside from this, not much was known. She had been raised with the Baratheon family until her mother's passing, when the young Lord sent her to the hold of one of his bannermen, where, to all appearances, she had remained.
Until a fortnight past.
It was believed that the King had issued the command in order to appease his steadily increasing paranoia. Whether he believed this woman was part of some conspiracy to take his throne, or whether he simply wanted her near to ensure that this could not come about, was known only to Aerys himself. As was the reason why this threat seemed a viable one only now, rather than in any of the years before.
The King's Hand had been quick to point out that it would have been better if she had been killed in infancy. Allowing a remnant of the Blackfyre line to grow into their own was to invite another attempted usurpation. Add to that the Targaryen blood of her mother - as pure as the King's own - and the result was a potential weapon behind which all those who would unseat the current royal branch could unite.
While Lady Visaera had never claimed either side of her heritage, it hardly mattered. There were many who would have seized any tool with which they might depose the Mad King from his seat, for reasons almost as numerous. Bastard-born she might be, the daughter of two dragons was a dangerous thing to keep alive.
Arthur did not often find himself in agreement with Tywin Lannister, but even he was forced to concede the truth in the man's statement. He understood the danger, but it did not mean he condoned the execution of a living soul that had committed no wrong.
For whatever reason, Aerys had never allowed it. In truth the decision had seemed as much a result of his thinking to strip the power from a potential threat by declaring it did not exist than as any reason of real substance. It was possible that the shared blood had somehow been enough to sway him. He had been raised to value family, after all, though not with love or with honor, but as pawns to be moved about, traded, and used. Some had suspected he intended to put an end to any potential conflict by wedding her to his son and heir, and called his neglecting to do so a deliberate waste of a perfect opportunity to dissolve the Blackfyre line permanently in addition to a waste of Targaryen blood.
Perhaps a marriage had been his intention once. The King had always been possessed of a changeable nature, as vain and charming as he was mercurial, and now saw teeth and knives in empty shadows, poison in bare stone. Whatever his cause for all but ignoring her up to now, it was no more. Probability was very high that there was to be another unjust death in a string of countless others.
It was treason to think it - that any act the King might commit could be unjust. It was treason to think how much better off the realm would have been for the madness to render Aerys frail and docile rather than yet more vicious and unpredictable. Treason to think how much better of a king his son would have made. Still, Arthur thought it, and where once he might have loathed himself for it, he now felt very little. Every man had a bit of treason in him, he supposed, and even in the eyes of all the Gods, he could be only so much a traitor. His first vows, after all, had not been to the Crown.
The shadow of a whisper rippled across the gathered crowd as more eyes strayed toward the great heavy doors to the throne room, standing wide and open into an empty hall. A question perhaps. Fear as to what might happen should the King tire of waiting.
Not a soul present had managed to miss that His Grace had seen fit to order the two most skilled and deadly fighters in his Kingsguard to his side for the occasion, after all.
The uneasy energy of the court was mirrored in the still forms of the rest of the royal family where they were seated to the left of the dais, though they bore it far more subtly. With the exception perhaps of the Queen, pale and weak still from the loss of yet another child never to draw breath. Her sons sat with her, eight-year-old Viserys at her right – picking at the hem of his tunic, looking bored and miserable in the way singularly found in children – and Rhaegar at her left, one of her hands in his. Though the crown prince's face was a stoic shield of apparent calm, Arthur could make out the subtle hints of strain Rhaegar attempted to conceal.
When movement stirred in the outer hall it was to the surprise of all present.
As a Lady under the protection of a nobleman's house, Visaera should have traveled with an armed escort, the noise of which would have announced itself long before drawing near enough to be seen. It had been confirmed by the servant stationed to watch for them that she had arrived with at least a handful of men bearing the Connington colors – those of her warden and surrogate father for the latter two thirds of her life. They should have remained with her, at least up to the doors. But the woman who approached was alone.
Aerys had allowed only the minimum respite from travel. So as not to give her nor anyone that might be conspiring with her the time with which to sow the seeds of the treachery he saw lurking in every shadow, or else to prevent her from being able to rest or refresh herself – and thus providing an excuse to punish a less than immaculate appearance as disrespectful. Exactly which was difficult to say. However, if either King or court had expected her to appear rumpled and road-weary, they were to be disappointed.
As she came to the threshold into the throne room, she sank into elegant genuflection – a curtsy low enough to broach that of someone possessed of a much lower rank than her own. Then, rising, she made her way down the center of the room, passing between great stone pillars and ancient dragon skulls, and the people packed tight about them, seemingly as serene as if she were answering an invitation to a summer banquet.
Few present had ever seen the Lady Visaera, and in the absence of real knowledge rumor had abounded.
Her sire, it was said, had been a monstrous creature - as hideous inside as he was terrible to look upon. The Blackfyre line had begun as an offshoot of the royal dynasty, but there had been whispers that there was bad blood there, made manifest in Maelys' warped and twisted frame. One would never know it to look upon his daughter, who from a glance favored not only her mother but the Targaryen ancestry of generations before.
Though it was quite decidedly still winter, and most of those gathered wore furs and heavy woolens to ward off the chill of the stone hall, she did not. There was only her gown – a blue as pale as new ice, and completely absent ornamentation of any kind. The style was typical for the Stormlands: the cut was generous, and the cloth likely fine quality, but there was no beading, embroidery, ribbon, nor even simple banding about the neckline or hem. And she wore no visible jewelry, a thing uncommon even for nobility of a banner house. Her hair was the only thing extravagant about her, the silvery-white mass intricately braided and knotted to spill over one shoulder.
The intended message could not have been clearer.
It was plain to anyone that not only was she declaring a lack of intent to assume any semblance of a claim to the family, and, as such, the throne, she was also doing everything she could to appear as harmless as possible.
The absence of guards, or even a maid, the humility of her appearance. The lack of protection against the cold was almost akin to a removing of armor. The pale colors neutralized the distinctive Targaryen hair rather than emphasizing it, and had the dual effect of making her appear innocent, vulnerable, almost virginal, as though the Maiden herself had taken to walking amongst them. Which was, no doubt, another layer to this particular move. Either she or someone close to her understood the workings of such subtle manipulation enough to use it quite effectively. Considering Aerys may yet demand her immediate imprisonment on some falsified charge, any tool at her disposal should - and no doubt would - be used.
"Lady Visaera Targaryen, Your Grace," the palace guard announced from his station at the base of the dais just as she reached the space of floor before it, where the pattern in the stones unfurled.
Smoothly she sank into another curtsy. Full, trailing sleeves pooled upon the floor alongside her skirts like so much icemelt as the curtsy deepened. In the space of a fluid second she was kneeling fully, head respectfully bowed. The way she might have for an execution as much as to a king.
"Your Grace," she greeted, her right hand lifting to rest over her heart, "my King, my cousin."
Arthur felt more than heard the collective stilling of breath at the deliberate reminder of kinship. A calculated thing, certainly, and potentially deadly when treating with a ruler half so volatile.
"A whore daughter to a whore mother," Aerys snarled. "You are Targaryen by my charity alone."
"By your leave, Your Grace," came her response, steady in a way which would have escaped most beneath the lash of such words in such a tone – scalding as a lick of flame. Aside from speaking, she did not otherwise move, remaining precisely where she was in submissive obeisance. He thought her eyes might even be closed, as though willing herself into serenity. Or perhaps not wishing to see the death blow draw near should it be commanded. "I do not claim the name. In law and in heart I am a Storm."
This was, strictly speaking, not entirely true. No one outside of the Stormlands referred to her with the bastard's surname, and even then, it was mostly the noble houses which used it. If the rest of Westeros referred to her at all, they called her Blackfyre – whether gladly or in insult. But in equal truth, neither name would serve as a shield for her.
For the space of several uncomfortable, strangled heartbeats there was silence even from prayer. Queen Rhaella's grip upon her son's hand had tightened to the point that Arthur could make out the white of her knuckles. He could almost taste the fear – sour and metal-hot. His own jaw was beginning to ache, though he had not realized his teeth had clenched.
Abruptly the King's bony hand flexed upon the warped sword-hilt which capped one arm of the throne upon which he perched, his overlong nails scraping long melted steel.
"Hmph. Blood of my blood, however tainted," the King finally growled, "as you have so kindly reminded me. You will remain here then, until I have determined what is to be done with you."
An exhale en masse seemed to accompany Lady Visaera's answer of expertly balanced graciousness and gratitude.
Neither imprisonment nor death. Yet, at any rate.
Flicking a hand Aerys dismissed her, turning his attention toward Tywin Lannister and barking some demand as she obediently rose, lifted her head.
Arthur knew he would remember the way she looked in that moment for the rest of his days. It was not the beauty of her features, nor the mild, perfectly pleasant mask into which she had arranged them, but the way her eyes burned, fierce and hot and bright as blue flame.
Turning, she approached the rest of her Targaryen kin.
"Cousin," Rhaella beckoned, clear affection in her fragile voice. Rhaegar stood with a warm murmur, respectfully offering up his seat. Visaera offered a smile in return, and, taking both the Queen's hands in her own, leant to kiss the other woman's cheek, to all appearances a soft court lady like any other.
Oh, he knew what she would claim, eyes round and just the faintest bit troubled, but he also knew what he had seen.
Whatever else she might pretend to be, she had the eyes of a dragon.
...
"How was the journey, truly?" Rhaegar pressed. "Armond wrote ahead to say that the pass down from the Roost has been treacherous of late."
From the corner of his vision Arthur saw one of Visaera's shoulders lift in a small shrug as she settled back in her chair. They were seated in the far corner of Rhaegar's private study, nearly the entire room between them and himself; far enough to grant a generous semblance of privacy but near enough that he could hear what was said in addition to making out less subtle movements.
Seated so close together, with so much clear daylight spilling through the unveiled windows, it was that much easier to see that Rhaegar's hair was more golden in tint than her silver, though they shared the same imperious, arching brows and narrow nose, the same fair, almost haughty bone structure. Characteristics which marked them blood.
"It wasn't as bad as we expected. The frost was receded from a month ago, which makes me think we might be getting spring sooner rather than later. The Kingsroad was the slog—the whole muddy damn mess of it."
"You made good time, at least."
"Gods be kind," Visaera agreed, lifting her wine cup in a gesture of thanks toward the divine, "much later and I might have been met by the Guard with a set of shackles."
Arthur could almost hear the furrow form between Rhaegar's fine, pale brows. The expression was nearly as loud as was his lack of argument.
Nearly two full days had passed before the two of them had been able to find the time and the freedom to meet outside of public scrutiny, as Rhaegar had been eager to do. Though the two had never met but for in briefest passing before Lady Visaera's arrival at Kings Landing, they had been exchanging correspondence for over a decade. Regardless of blood relation, Arthur knew the Prince had come to regard her as a close friend in addition to a confidante, and had matters weighing on his mind that he dearly wanted to bring to her but had not dared put to paper.
It was perhaps symptomatic of both his being a member of the Kingsguard and of his own deeply vested friendship with Rhaegar that he retained a healthy wariness where the Lady was concerned. Rhaegar had never in his years been a fool, and Arthur questioned neither his instincts nor his inclination to place his confidence in his cousin. He was simply not yet ready to trust her with the Prince's life.
He was, however, willing to gamble that this was one of the precise reasons Rhaegar had requested for him to be present during this meeting.
It had not simply been because he trusted Arthur above the other six. He could just as easily have ordered the Kingsguard present to the other side of the closed door had he wished for more privacy. It was that he wanted his own primary chosen advisors to acclimate to one another. Whether it was a wise move or a premature one remained to be seen.
"There was a meeting of the Small Council this morning," Rhaegar said mildly, pouring himself more wine.
"Oh?"
"According to Tywin, he is already in discussion with several of the lords in the Vale on behalf of my Lord Father about potential husbands for you."
A delicate snort followed the statement.
"Do you truly believe," Visaera mused, "that His Grace would wed me to some rich little lordling in trade for livestock or soldiers and allow me to bear traitorous Blackfyre children which might someday attempt to overthrow him—or you? Do you think Tywin Lannister would? No. He will keep me right here where he can study the form of my every blink, all the easier to have me killed. And if he is feeling particularly resourceful he'll find a way to manage both in the same swipe. No need to arrange for an assassin if I'm bound to a man that will see to the business for them. The promise will likely be my brideprice."
She laughed, a sharp, hollow peal of sound utterly stripped of humor. It was not intended, Arthur thought, to reveal anything but disdain, perhaps bitter resignation, but she had not quite managed to keep the note of fear from it.
He was not sure why he consistently imagined her to be far older than she was, both before seeing her and even now. She was no child, certainly, but the way she spoke and held herself – as with the way she had offered caution or advice in her letters – leant her an air of wisdom that seemed beyond an unmarried woman of three and twenty who had never spent a day amidst the intrigues of the Red Keep. In that moment, however, there was neither artifice nor pretense. Just a young woman not all that older than his own sister, frightened and almost alone in a place surrounded by strangers – half of which would have been more than glad to see her gone.
He felt a stirring of sympathy for her, for just how long she must have felt the ax hovering above her.
Leaning forward, Rhaegar lowered his cup to the low table between them. "I won't let that happen," he asserted, his conviction as stone for all that he spoke softly.
"Even if you had that power," Visaera replied gently, "I would forbid you to use it."
For a moment Rhaegar was quiet, his pause weighted. "In regards to that—to power…there is a matter I would discuss with you."
Though she said nothing, Arthur noted the sharp jerk of her chin when her head angled toward him, the stiffening of her posture.
"Ser Arthur is my closest friend. He will keep our words in confidence," Rhaegar assured, "you needn't worry."
Only at the mention of his name did Arthur allow himself to turn and face them with a formal incline of his head, just catching the skeptical arc of one brow.
"A rare quality in a guardsman, who are so often spies," she mused, and while her tone was mild, amiable even, he was not immune to the edge of the words it bore.
She regarded him with slightly narrowed eyes; something which might have been interpreted as aggression had he not recognized the lack of any real challenge. Rather, she was trying, he understood, to read him.
And not, he had the sudden inexplicable certainty, for her own sake.
He recognized the swift streak of protectiveness in her as he would have recognized it in the flash of an inch of bared steel. Not threat so much as reminder. Most would have missed it – those who read people merely for emotion rather than for parry and counterstrike would certainly have missed it. But he saw it as surely as he saw her seated there in her muted pewter day dress, a dark, almost shadowed presence next to Rhaegar in vibrant scarlet. Whether she truly believed herself marked for imminent death, she was also willing to bare teeth for the man seated across from her.
Adjusting the position of his hand at the sword pommel at his left hip, he offered her a shallow bow and answered the thinly veiled accusation with concession. "Often, My Lady."
He saw little gain in wasting breath by proclaiming to be an exception when such protestations would more than likely ring hollow. She would trust him no sooner than she believed him worthy of it, and it would not be at his assurance but at that of his actions – as it was the other way around.
As if she had followed the exact course of his reasoning, she remarked coyly: "but never you, Ser Dayne."
He merely ducked his chin in answer, suppressing the reflex to smile at the jab.
Rhaegar, he noticed, was hiding his own smile beneath a hand.
He might have expected some slight, cutting little following barb about untrustworthy Dornish heathens, but none came.
"Very well, then," Visaera relented, turning back to her cousin, "what is it you wished to speak about?"
Instantly the Prince sobered. Clasping his hands together, he took a breath, and began slowly.
"When I wrote you last, I told you that I feared for the people."
"I remember."
A heavy exhale filled and hollowed the prince's chest. "Three moons back my father had one of the kitchen maids tortured and killed for attempting to poison him because he thought a haunch of boar smelled off. A month after he told the Grand Maester that the grain shipment arriving a day late meant that the lords of the Reach mean to band together in revolt. He's brought a pyromancer into employ here in the Keep."
"A pyromancer?" Visaera's growing frown deepened.
"Just last week—" Rhaegar's jaw worked, his lilac eyes, normally thoughtful, gone dark. Haunted. "…three men were brought into the hall. Pickpockets, petty thieves, meant for a labor sentence or the Wall. He had them burned. Right there in front of the court."
For many, the smell would have been enough to sear the memory into permanence. But the sounds had been the worst of it – the gurgling screams wrenched from melting innards, the cracking of bones splitting open like new logs still fresh at the core. The way the unnatural green flames of the sorcerous wildfire had lingered to lick at the stones long after even the last remnants and residue had been devoured.
It had been enough to chill the very soul.
The Queen, thank the Mother's mercy, had still been abed. Princess Elia had not been so fortunate, and had remained ill for several days after.
The breath left Visaera in a low hiss. She was gripping the elaborately carved arm of her chair as though holding it back from rearing up and striking like a fanged serpent. The decorative lacing which trailed down her fitted sleeve pressing tight to the flesh of her forearm.
"Do you think he means to…"
She seemed to struggle momentarily, as if unable to form words with which to illustrate the thoughts putting the sickly pallor in her cheeks.
If he could be certain of nothing else, Arthur thought, no one alive was so accomplished enough of an actor to control their color in such a way.
"I think he would burn the whole city and everyone in it without a second thought if he sees so much as the wrong kind of shadow, unless we stop it," Rhaegar answered, grim and bone-weary.
It took obvious effort for her to push through the cloud of her horror in order to look at him anew. "What are you saying?"
"I mean to call a Great Council."
Unconsciously the muscle in Arthur's back coiled, bracing against the inevitable response, the form of which he could not predict.
It was no light thing for a prince to attempt deposing a reigning king, whether or not there was relation between them. And Rhaegar had not come to the decision lightly. For countless months he had deliberated, agonizing over the potential risk, weighing what few options he had. In the end he had determined that a ruler must prioritize the land and its people over his personal wellbeing, and that if he must do so, he would go about the matter by utilizing the method most commonly used to determine succession in times of controversy or contention. By gathering the lords of the land – as many as might share the sentiment that Aerys must be removed from power – and negotiating their support.
Going about it in such a way could be a great boon to his rule, should it come together as planned. Involving the high houses was to offer them back some of the control they no longer had under the thumb of king consumed by insanity, before they even acted. Whether the answer was support or opposition, the gesture would be remembered.
There was no need to explain the why or the how of this to Visaera, who had grown up reading the same histories which Rhaegar himself had absorbed in his youth. She knew what it meant, just as she knew the terrible risk there was to her in possessing even this smallest sliver of information. Still, she did not appear all that surprised by the revelation, almost as though she had expected it to come.
"If I do this," Rhaegar hedged, the tendons in the backs of his elegant hands standing in sharp relief the only thing to belie he was anything less than calm. "Would I have your sword?"
It was strange wording to use for a Lady that was not head of a noble family, though Visaera hardly seemed to think so. She was staring through the glass at her left, out at the water in the bay below – choppy and winter dark – though not truly appearing to see what lay in front of her. Perhaps she was weighing her own danger, or else imagining the possible devastation which might result, either of action or inaction, or both equally.
There were no perfect kings. Anyone who had lived long enough and near enough to have clear view of their workings understood this. But if the question lay simply in finding the most straightforward way to safeguard the realm, the answer was equally simple.
Rhaegar was as even-tempered and truly noble as his father was the opposite. The only traits they truly shared beyond the physical were their capacity for keen thinking - long since rotted away in Aerys – avid determination, bordered on stubbornness. He believed in the duty that came alongside his titles in a way few kings truly acknowledged, let alone accepted. Most importantly, he deeply valued the lives he deemed under his protection, from those of his own wife and child to those crammed in the foulest, poorest slums. This was one of the foremost qualities which tended to buy him loyalty, including that of Arthur himself.
"Yes."
When she finally delivered her answer, it was so hushed that Arthur could hardly make it out.
"You have it. Until my last day."
Reaching, Rhaegar grasped her hands in his own, pale head bowed over them to emphasize not only gratitude, but relief in equal measure. "Thank you."
A muffled clank seized Arthur's attention away from the moment, causing his head to tilt toward the heavy door behind him. From the other side he could discern the distinctive medley of sounds which followed a knight in armor – the delicate clinks of mail to the louder metallic jostle of plate – coming up the hall, and more than certainly heading for the Prince's chambers.
"Your Grace…"
Heeding the warning immediately, Rhaegar rose from his chair to put some distance between himself and Visaera, moving to the shelf packed to groaning with books in the opposite corner while she leant to take up her wine anew and angled her body to face the window. By the time the knock came, they might simply have been discussing a tome of annual harvest yield or the patterns of the sea.
Arthur stepped aside as the door swung inward to reveal Barristan Selmy, his fellow Kingsguard as characteristically somber as ever as he bowed upon the threshold.
"Your Grace, My Lady. I apologize for the interruption."
Rhaegar offered the knight a smile. "No interruption at all."
Visaera had risen from her chair, cup abandoned, and turned to face the older man. "Ser Barristan," she addressed him formally, "some years ago you did a great service to my mother, for all that it was not your primary aim."
It was a widely known and celebrated fact that Barristan had slain the man who had sired her, thus putting an end to the Rebellion waged in his name, and inadvertently delivering Rhaelle's rapist into the Stranger's tender mercy. Still, Arthur had certainly not expected her to bring the subject up. Neither, it seemed, had Barristan.
The older man was well practiced in the art of schooling his expression – as all the Kingsguard had to be – but the surprise was in his steady gray eyes. Surprise which reached his face in full when she bowed her head to him.
"For her, I thank you."
Clearly uncomfortable, Barristan glanced briefly to Rhaegar's expression of approval, then back to her. "I did my duty, My Lady. No more than that."
"All the same," was her insistence, "my gratitude, Ser."
Seeming to accept that she was genuine in her words, Barristan bowed once again in answer, and turned his attention back to Rhaegar.
"Your Grace, Princess Elia has expressed that she wishes to speak with you, as soon as you are able."
Rhaegar nodded. "Thank you. Inform Her Grace I'll be along momentarily—"
"Nonsense," Visaera interrupted firmly, "go to your lady wife."
Rhaegar shot her an appreciative look, and the smile she answered it with was one so soft and genuine that Arthur found himself wondering momentarily what things might have been like had Aerys decided to have them marry after all. Not all that different, likely. Certainly there appeared to be love there, but not the kind that would have changed things.
Arthur returned the Prince's parting nod – one full of relief and a burden made marginally lighter, and perhaps the faintest note of self-satisfaction – and allowed him to pass into Barristan's guardianship.
"Well then…"
When he looked back to her, it was to find Lady Visaera's eyes on him. Back was the keen, studious light, as though she sought to pry loose his armor and pierce him as surely as a lance.
"The Sword of the Morning," she remarked, her steps carrying her slowly toward him and giving him the very briefest sense that he was being stalked and cornered. "I hear your pretty title comes from your blade. A blade awarded only to those deemed worthy of carrying it."
"Both are true, My Lady."
She drew closer still, the glide of her skirts across the floor a softness to temper the penetrating spark in her gaze. The deep gray of the heavy wool made her hair seem almost metal threaded fine where it fell in thick waves behind her shoulders.
For the space of a moment, he half expected her to ask to see the blade at his side, as all seemed to do eventually. Then he realized that her eyes had never once strayed to the sword, but remained steadfastly fixed upon his face. Only his face. This was not a woman who gave a single fig about embellished stories or gossip, who had remotely any interest in overblown legend or basking in secondhand glory like so many ladies years her junior and senior alike.
"Curious," she added, so innocuous as to be nearly airy, "that it just so happened to be awarded to the son of a greater lord."
He made no effort to conceal his smile this time.
She was testing him, feeling for a temper, an ego too easily bruised – beginning the lengthy process of piecing together what manner of man he truly was. She was by no means the first to attempt it, though she was by far the most upfront about the matter.
"As you say, My Lady."
There was a very slight upturn at the end of her nose, he noticed, and, up close, he could see that the shape of her face was a bit more oval than those of her kin. Her chin had a bit of a stubborn edge, her mouth wide and beguiling, and curving as he watched to form a cool, not-quite-smile.
"Good day, Ser."
With that, she swept serenely past him to vanish, swallowed by the expanse of the hall.
NOTES:
For reasons I cannot explain, I adore Arthur Dayne and - as I typically do - find myself with a desperate need to give the poor man love.
This has absolutely gotten away from me and I don't care.
I started down this rabbit hole riding on the Lyanna/Arthur train, but I never really fit there. I just don't really ship Lyanna with anyone (although yes, I do believe R+L=J). And as I don't really ship Elia/Arthur either and we don't know of any other specific options...here we are.
I'll leave it there for now. More to come soon.