Winter.
Debarking at Storm's End, they had ridden hard. Her Lord Husband haven taken only a hundred sworn swords and rode as if the very devils of the Seven hells were at their backs. One of them, a short man with the shoulders of a bear and fiery red hair, had become her protector. They call themselves the Free Folk. Tormund Giantsbane, founder of the Masterly House of Giantsbane (She wondered what the Great Jon had said to that, with his chained giants and the actual giants who were claimed to herd mammoths and work construction on his lands. She'd yet to see them.) who was usually jovial and quick with a bawdy joke or to hurl more profanity than she'd ever heard in her entire life at court. (Yet who possessed a sense of fairness and integrity, she admired in the uncouth savage.) had such a grim look on his face. "There's a power in the air, princess." Tormund had answered. "You fucking kneelers play with powers like a babe that pokes a sleeping dog."
It was true, Rhaella realized. "Playing with powers like a child antagonizes a dog" was as good as any descriptor for Targaryen folly. Beneath her, she could hear the clatter of hooves against the cobbled stone of the roads. Inspired by the great "liquid stone" roads of the Reach and the magnificent black roads of the West and the North (though only the Westerlands possessed true Valyrian roads.), King Jaehaerys the wise had engaged in a great public works effort. Roads, canals, the intent to connect Westeros so that peon or noble alike could move through the realm and so too could trade and troops. The works had ceased during the reigns of Rhaenyra and Aegon the second when their dance scorched many armies and towns. But they had resumed again under Viserys the second and his successors. Thus, the improved Boneway made it so they gained an extra day they might have spent riding on dirt roads. Tormund was right; as they approached Summerhall, even she could feel it before the billowing clouds of smoke were visible. Father…Aegon…Aerys.
Panic seized her heart, and Lord Rickard's features grew far more solemn as he spurred his stallion onwards, and by the time they reached the lands sworn Summerhall, Rhaella could smell what she thought was bacon at first, but when her husband shook his head, she knew before he even answered that it was human flesh. Gods, please spare them all from the madness of prophecy!
For that was the only explanation she could think of. Rhaella, out of all her cousins, spent the most time with the old King, reading to him when staring at papers hurt his eyes. Listening to stories he told of his adventures, his insights into the smallfolk and their lives. The thought of never seeing his sun-browned, wizened face again filled her with dread. "Tormund may be right; they may have done something..unnatural," she called to her husband; they were in a full gallop now. He was barreling down onto the center of the smoke and death. After all, Lord Aenar refused to attend, sending one of his dozens of spares when the Hand remains in King's Landing.
Rickard only nodded and gripped ice, his eyes determined. "Do not leave my side; if worse comes to worst, we make a circle and strike at any abomination that comes near us, understand?" He means it too. Rhaella realized, suppressing a chill as her hair fluttered in the wind, the air dry and hot even though spring was still moons away. She was also touched; Rickard didn't want her to stand behind him so the warriors might shield her. No, he wanted his bride by his side. Rhaella allowed a smile to trespass across her graceful features despite the anxiety mounting in her heart. Will I look back on this as an old maid and say this moment betwixt the horror in front of us and the road beneath us that I knew we loved each other?
Maybe, but fond memories were a lifetime away from forming, and once they reached the ruined castle, she could only hold back the reflexive urge to empty the content of her stomach onto the grass. Servants sat, eyes blank, lost and directionless, covered in soot, sweat, and dried blood. Stupefied as they were, they weren't even aware of her presence. "they're like ghosts." She whispered. "We're like ghosts to them, wife; they are trapped in the horrors they've borne witness to."
Horrors, Gods! Father! Mother! When she dismounted, her eyes were wide with panic. "Lady Rhaella, Lord Stark." It was Harlan Grandison, the aged Knight of the Kingsguard, who looked utterly haunted, and when she ran to embrace him, he pulled away. "Nay, dear one, my armor is still heated."
Her eyes widened. "Are you burnt?" she asked, gripping his forearm, holding the vambrace, failing to notice the sharp gaze of Ser Grandison and Lord Rickard. It doesn't burn me. She thought as he shook his head, a pained look in his eyes telling the truth to the lie of his gesture. "Come, Ser Harlan." Rickard gestured towards one of his men at arms, a Thenn with unnaturally crimson skin who had bent the knee seeking a better life for his children away from whatever lay beyond the wall. "Grym shall tend to you."
"I do not need a healer, man! I need to find my-" Rhaella shook him and forced his eyes to meet hers. "You cannot do your duty if corruption in the blood from burns takes you Ser…Serve my grandsire by attending to yourself." She did her best to mimic the imperious voice of her father and the kind yet firm lordly voice of mighty Rickard Stark. For a moment, the Knight gazed at her, hesitant, then he smiled with a flicker of pride between his sorrow, and he nodded. I cannot allow myself to mourn not until I know who I am to mourn.
She would be mourning her mother and grandsire, whose blackened bones were still visible by the accursed tree. She nearly yelled out but felt hands grip her elbows; she turned to see Aerys. His purple eyes haunted his surcoat and tunic stained with ash, our mother's ashes. She realized, then turned to see Rohanne clutching a babe in her arms, laying against a small mound that rose out of the ground; she was sobbing in relief and joy. "Aerys! You're a father."
"Thank the Gods you're late," Aerys said, not hearing her. "I worried I'd never see you again." This was to be where we said goodbye forever; perhaps it still shall be, brother. Rhaella only patted his arm before breaking to see Valarr and his betrothed, her half-sister Vaella sobbing in his arms. "The king…"
"He sacrificed himself to save us all," Jaehaerys whispered from where he'd been seated atop the mound. Her father never looked so gaunt, and his cheeks so sunken in and one lopsided..No..Not lopsided. Gone. That was when she realized her father was missing nearly half his face, tears streaked down burnt flesh, and white teeth and yellowed jawbone, and that sight finally unnerved her, and she broke into sobs.
Ormund Baratheon and his son Steffon had come from behind what looked like a shack but were, in truth, a tunnel exits from below the castle. Neither member of House Sunfyre made it out; she felt a swell of pity. Ormund's eyes were red with tears, and Steffon looked like he wanted to crush something betwixt massive hands.
Rickard nodded somberly. "Then, the King is dead, long live the-'
He was interrupted by a chirp that devolved into a ghostly shriek, and Rhaella turned, seeing something white moving at breakneck speeds. Something white and tiny and with the color of blood in its underwings. Underwings? What is the name of the seven?
It hit her in the chest with such desperation and fear that she instinctively wrapped her arms around it as though it were a child, and then she heard one of the Baratheons scream, "FUCK! SEVEN HELLS RHAE GE…ARGH!" she looked up to see something similar occur, a blue serpent? No, neither a serpent nor any reptile; indeed, it was long and broad, strong of limb, and had a tail twice the length of its body, and its arms were…Gods, those are wings!
A suckling sound could be heard, and she darted her eyes down to see two such creatures, one curled around the newborn prince protectively; that one was all gold and gallant looking, and the one suckling at her teet a slender beside the infant prince, wyrm-like copper creature. And then she turned and gasped.
Valarr and Aerys were standing back-to-back, each with a similar creature snaked around their shoulders. Prince Valarr's was a great black creature with a deep red underbelly and underwings with two tiny, elegant horns emerging from the crown of the head, staring inquisitively at Vaella, who held in her arms a smoky charcoal-looking "infant" that was nuzzling into her chest and making chirping like noises. And her brother? The creature about his shoulders and neck was the reverse of Prince Valarr's, deep red with an underbelly starting at the chin and running down the length of its tail, its underwings as well but the rest of it?
Targaryen red.
Dragons…that is why we were here; grandsire died to bring dragons back into the world.
And they choose us, all with the blood of the Dragon.
She felt a forked tongue tracing her cheek where tears had fallen, and she looked down to see the Dragon in her arms, her dragon. It was an albino creature with blood-red eyes and streaks of red along its nostrils and above its eyes. "Winter.." she whispered, compelled by a sense of destiny and power. "Your name is Winter, little one."
"That is not your decision to make." Said her father in a stern voice, his words coming out somewhat hissed and lisped due to the extreme burns on one side of his face. His purple eyes were weary, stained with tears, and filled with dread. "My father died to bring them into the world. His last gift to House Targaryen, all of you will turn it over."
The dragons seemed to sense the tension and hissed. Rhealla felt something stir in her, and she locked eyes with her father. "You will have to kill me, father, for I will only part with Winter in death. She chose me, and the others chose our kin."
For a moment, it seemed like her own father would order Ser Harlan and Ser Gerold (who had come from the south with the rest of the Kingsguard in tow.) to advance on her and her eyes were wide with hurt and fury. But her father was stunned into silence by scornful laughter, the laughter of her brother, who turned and glared balefully at the king. "Are we mere flesh peddlers, father? Is that what has become of the mighty House of the Dragon? Do we claim ownership over Dragons who are said to possess the cunning of men and greater intelligence as though we were the arrogant Volantenes and Lyseni who conspire endlessly to make war upon our holdings in Essos?" his voice was filled to the brim with scorn, outrage and contempt, and a protective fire that Rhaella had never seen. My brother never possessed the genius of Viserys the second, the common sense of our grandfather, the conciliator's wisdom, nor the conqueror's vision. Still, right now, I see what Tywin and Valarr see.
Greatness.
Jaehaerys struggled to his feet, his weak body nearly collapsing under the new agonies. His breaches ran through with reddish-brown stains, He'd passed blood during the escape, and the ice dragoness noted that Vaella whimpered for her father. "Are you mad, son? The strength of house Targaryen lies in its Dragons! If we give them up."
"To our kin?"
"Do not contest me on this. I AM THE KING!"
"Tywin says any man who declares himself a thing and does so often and loudly is not that thing," Aerys responded in an even tone. Perhaps it was the reversal of their roles, with the calm yet firm Jaehaerys raving like a madman while the tempestuous Aerys remained calm if indignant. Or the blow of those words, but Jaehaerys face was suddenly twisted with shame, and he slumped against a tree, his body convulsing with the emotions that warred within him.
Aerys took a gentler approach when next he spoke. "Consider this, father; the Dance destroyed our greatest dragons, and King Aegon believed the Maesters had begun slowly poisoning them and mayhap engineered the dance; they killed the rest through subtle means. Imprisoned in the Dragonpit and concentrated solely in two locations, they were an easy target."
Something shifted in the King's tired eyes. "You mean to say this would mitigate the risk of extinction?"
Aerys nodded. "And it would allow us to create a curtain of power in the hands of our most loyal vassals, each in a strategic position to strike at less reputable and loyal houses."
"And close enough to the narrow sea that a group of dragon riders could reach the free cities and strike at them within a day of any moves against the seven Kingdoms." Rickard offered, his tone dangerously low, as though he was giving the new king an ultimatum in the guise of wise council.
"Aye, the lord of Winterfell has the right of it," Lord Ormund declared, scratching his bearded chin as he contemplated the logistics of her Lord Husband's words. "And we would send half to King's landing any clutches of eggs our dragons should lay from couplings."
Valarr nodded, a hand scratching the neck of the tiny legend that now breathed and lived again. "See sense, your grace…The King is dead, do not let your reign commence with paranoia."
Jaehaerys seemed to weigh his options, her father's body shivering in pain. Her heart broke for him even as fury filled in the cracks. Father, please see reason. We cannot fall apart just as Aegon, and the Gods grant us the means by which to rise again.
"Very well, I grant you all this boon, so long as you swear renewed fealty to House Targaryen, here and now. That you will never bring Dragons to bear against my house and my generations," He spoke in a sad, flat voice, the sound of a defeated man and not a king.
"No," Rickard stated calmly, his voice like steel and eyes blazing with a winter's tempest. "No, you have made a mockery of your father's sacrifice; you blaspheme against the Gods old and new with your covetousness, and you denigrate your living kin by implying that they would be kinslayers for mere avarice."
"How dare..you…."
"HOW DARE YOU! WHO MADE A MOCKERY OF THE DEAD? Denigrating those who made the ultimate sacrifice to purchase the realm this boon." Rickard's voice boomed as loud as any Baratheon, and then he went quiet, speaking in that calm and somber tone she knew to be the most dangerous of tones. "I will renew my vows of fealty and give your house a line of Northern dragon riders, but only if House Targaryen swears it upholds the realm's laws, the peace of Aegon, and solidarity with its vassals. We serve you, your grace but the ones served are bound just as those who serve are. If you do not, I will withdraw, and you will have to come to Winterfell to dislodge me and take our dragon back by force."
Our Dragon.
Rhaella thought with misty eyes. In winter, her Lord Husband had said. "The lone wolf dies, but the pack survives."
"And you will find myself and Aegos there as well." Aerys hissed, his voice full of sorrow but grim resolve as he stood beside Lord Rickard, a hand on Dark Sister. "You have disgraced our family, father; you have mocked the dead, and you would risk a second dance with babies because of your fear. These are my kin, my brothers, my boyhood friends. As it is, so shall it always be."
Valarr joined Aerys nodding, his dragon's snout smoking in a hiss, and soon Ormund joined as well as his son Steffon. "We are yours to command your grace, now and always, but what you did was a low thing."
Jaehaerys was stunned into silence, horror dawning on his face as he understood how close he came to fracturing bonds with their most loyal vassals and risked all they had gained. "Aegos?" he asked weakly.
"For king Aegon the fifth, who gave all so that we would have a chance to live a thousand, thousand years as lords over the Seven Kingdoms," Aerys answered, something flickering in his eyes. Something noble and gallant and kind and yet… "And this one shall be Maelos, in honor of my uncle, who died beside Ser Duncan the Tall that we might live. We serve you, great king; we all do. You need not fear us; no Blackfyre has ever risen against the just and righteous king, and no Blackfyre ever shall."
Jaehaerys nodded, relenting as he swore oaths and accepted them in turn.
Rhaella knew, after today, that Aerys would be seen as a great prince and, perhaps in time, the greatest of Kings, despite his foibles and failings. She gazed at her brother with new respect, yet it seemed she was the only one who noticed the queer flicker in his eyes, the brief glint that ordinarily lay below the surface.
The hunger in those eyes…
They seemed to dance on the edge of madness, if only for a second.
But it was still there.