Chapter 13: A Merging
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
The Crownlands stretched across the horizon in a flattened broad expanse, reaching farther than the eye could see, like a shaggy green shawl blanketing the earth. It was beautiful, similar to the North in that there were uninterrupted miles of wide open spaces; but where Winterfell ensured you were constantly wrapped in leather and furs, the Crownlands blew a mild breeze across Lyanna's skin, no hotter than bath water.
They had been traveling for the better part of a week and a half - herself, Prince Rhaegar, Sers Oswell and Arthur, and a handful of Gold Cloaks she'd yet to learn the names of. Atop her black Northern destrier, Lyanna tried her damndest to stay quiet and to stay fast; she wouldn't have it said that the Stark girl couldn't ride or shut up.
But when night fell, it was a different story. Dinner had been her favorite time at home in Winterfell, the time in which she'd trade japes with Benjen, when she would nag Brandon and laugh with her father. On the Kingsroad, she felt entirely, truly lonely.
The only surprising appeasement to her solitary travels was Ser Oswell Whent. An imposing Kingsguard with chestnut hair and a hard face of inherent sternness, Lyanna had not expected him to be quite much of anything.
As it turned out, Oswell Whent was a true riot once he opened up; over the days, Lyanna learned that he was sarcastic to a fault, dry, and particularly a fan of dark, oftentimes rowdy, jokes and stories. He kept her smiling as they dined on meager fare each night, and for a few good moments, she could forget her destination.
On the ninth night, after a supper of sausage and hard cheese on black bread, Ser Oswell asked her, "What were you doing in that black tent?"
At this, Rhaegar and Arthur, the latter of which had been cleaning his blade Dawn, paused and looked over. They were only a stone's throw away, situated across the campfire from herself and Oswell.
"Black tent?" She repeated, momentarily confused.
Oswell took a swig from his skin of wine, eyeing her. "When I came to escort you to the feast," he clarified, "I bumped into you outside a black tent."
Realization dawned on Lyanna, and as it did, embarrassment followed. She could only imagine how they would tease her, scowl at her in condescension; did she really want to regale her meeting with Maggy to a hock of Southerners, only to have them scoff and play her up as a "supersititious Northerner"?
She shook her head. "It was nothing."
Ser Arthur, the shining Dornish Kingsguard, grinned, his purple eyes sparkling. "Now I'm intrigued. You must tell us." The wine had reddened his golden cheeks.
Rhaegar studied her openly, unafraid of who may see. His eyes seemed black in the night, no trace of purple in their hue, as licking red campfire reflected in them ominously. Lyanna thought he had never looked more like a dragonlord, all silver skin and silver hair and disturbing eyes and regal bone structure.
"It was a fortune teller," Lyanna finally muttered, ducking her chin to avoid eye contact.
"A fortune teller," Oswell repeated, sounding genuinely amused. "And what did this teller say?"
Maggy's words were tattooed on her mind forever, and there was no way they would fade, even if a thousand years passed over her. But she also didn't want to repeat them to the crown prince, his White Swords, and a handful of Gold Cloaks that were within listening distance. She shook her head again, mute.
"Come now," Ser Arthur coaxed with a small smile. "I want to know the Lady Lyanna Stark's fortune."
Lyanna wondered if they would have ever been so bold if it were not for the Dornish wine Rhaegar had popped with supper. She'd had a few swigs herself, and the lovely spice did pleasant, warm things to her chest.
"What would a Northern girl want to know about her future?" Oswell mused playfully. "How much snow Winterfell will get? When winter is actually coming?"
She snorted. "Why would I ask about the weather at Winterfell if I was to live at Storm's End?" She asked rhetorically.
Oswell tipped his wine skin at her. "Fair point, my lady."
"Lyanna," she corrected quietly.
Rhaegar's voice was as unexpected as it was soft, and yet it still sliced at her. "Did you wonder how your life with Robert Baratheon would be?"
The way she jerked, her eyes widening, her ensuing silence, told the three men everything they needed to know. Some of their playfulness had seemed to dim respectfully at the realization.
"And?" Rhaegar prompted. "What did the fortune teller have to say about Lord Robert?"
Caught in his gaze, she responded, "Nothing, actually. Though I didn't realize that at the time."
The men tipped their heads in confusion.
She explained, "Maggy - that was her name - never specified who my husband would be when she foretold my fortune."
Rhaegar's mouth formed an 'o'. "Ah."
"I should have guessed really," Lyanna laughed, stealing a gulp of wine from Oswell's skin.
"What do you mean?" Arthur wondered, leaning back against a log.
In the warm fog that settled over her brain, Lyanna said, "My children couldn't very well be the winged wolves if I married a stag."
Rhaegar's eyes flashed up instantly, keen interest evident in his gaze. Lyanna realized what she had said, what she had implied, and heat rushed to her face. She said, "It's just some foolish nonsense that mummers spew to get your coin."
Oswell chuckled, breaking the tension. "And how much coin did you offer for that little tidbit?"
None, she thought, I paid the blood price. She shrugged instead.
"And that's all you were given?" Oswell scoffed. "I would have asked for my money back."
"No," Lyanna interjected. Rhaegar was staring at her, hard and intense enough to make her skin crawl.
She thought about blurting out the bit where Maggy had promised her maidenhead would stay intact long after their wedding night, but that would start an argument - and she wasn't going to fight him about that. Not tonight, at least.
"She said other things," Lyanna continued vaguely, almost defensively.
"Like?" Arthur prompted.
"Oh, it's stupid!" Lyanna burst, throwing her arms up in exasperation. "The woman just wanted to butter me up, so she told me a bunch of stuff about my children being great."
Something was shining in Rhaegar's eyes, a tangible thing that seemed ready to come out and take Lyanna by the shoulders. The moonlight created a ring of shining silver atop the crown of his head. His fingers were claws against his knees as he bent forward, intent to catch every word that came out of her mouth.
"Great?" Arthur repeated, suddenly sobered.
"Yeah," Lyanna shrugged, "something along the lines of them being the greatest that ever lived. That my firstborn would be the...the, I don't know."
But she did. She remembered every syllable Maggy had uttered to her in that dark tent with the scent of smoke and blood in the air. "Your three children will be the greatest that the world has ever seen, your firstborn the Promised One."
"The what?" Rhaegar murmured, prompting her to finish her sentence.
She looked up at him, suddenly wary to share her fortune at all. He was too interested, too bright-eyed at these innocuous words of an old crone she'd found among mummers and singers.
But Ser Oswell and Ser Arthur were staring at her, too, and she felt the pressure build within her like the tide of the ocean. "The 'Promised One'," she said lightly, attempting to make a joke of it so they would stop their queer looks.
"Was there..." Arthur said, "was there anything else?"
Rhaegar looked like he had seen a ghost, unblinking and breathing hard like he'd run across Westeros.
Lyanna drank down the rest of the wine, ignoring Rhaegar's sharp inhale of breath as she said, "'And their blood will freeze and flame with that of ice and fire'."
Notes:
Rickard POV next chapter...
Chapter 14: A Dragon's Order
Chapter Text
When the Stark banners were spotted waving a mile off of Winterfell, Lord Rickard Stark did not feel the instant alleviation that he usually did, that quick relief at knowing his children had come home. Instead, all he felt was dread.
The weight of King Aerys' letter sat like an anvil in his stomach, heavy and crushing with the dark words of the Mad King.
Lyanna Stark is formally betrothed to the Crown Prince and Lord of Dragonstone, Rhaegar of the House Targaryen, by official decree of King Aerys II.
When the raven came, bearing a letter with the waxed seal of a three-headed dragon, Rickard's first thought was, Aerys knows, he's found out my plans to align against him.
Instead came the news of a formal betrothal of royal order to his sole daughter, instantly and effectively severing any ties Rickard might have produced for Robert and Lyanna.
With a stroke of a quill pen against parchment, the brawn of Rickard's ambitions against the crown had crumbled like the charred remains of paper in flames. Robert Baratheon's lands and bannermen constituted a good majority of the strength Rickard both needed and wanted to rebel against the Mad King.
Of course, he still had the force of the North, the knights and lords of the Vale, and soon the strength of the Riverlands. But the Stormlands were an invaluable asset to Rickard's cause, and to lose that connection was a great hit.
Lyanna, my Lyanna, Princess and future Queen of the Seven Kingdoms, Rickard mused, a wry smile upon his lips. At least he had only ever heard good things of Prince Rhaegar, how kind and noble the man was.
But his daughter was a free spirit, with roots in the North, firmly planted and not easily uprooted, even by dragons.
He could still recall the day Lyanna received her very first horse, could see it as plain as if the ghost of his little girl were right in front of him, all smiles and dark hair and intense excitement. Only nine at the time, Lyanna had tittered all day long around the grounds atop her brand new horse, an Akhal-Teke he'd bought from Highgarden, with a coat that shined like cloth-of-silver.
It took two days for her to name her silver horse, after consulting with Brandon, who had come home from Barrowton for a visit, after testing names out on her tongue through two long dinners, after scouring the library's stories for something, anything fitting for her beautiful steed.
At last, she named the horse Meraxes, after the silver-scaled dragon of Rhaenys, the Targaryen sister-queen of Aegon the Conquerer. Day in and day out, Lyanna rode Meraxes; around the training yard, across the vast Winterfell grounds, through the godswood with Benjen hot on her heels.
If you ever needed to find that little girl, all you had to do was stand still and listen for the battle cries of "Faster, Meraxes, faster!" or "I'm Rhaenys Targaryen!"
When Brandon eventually came home for good from his fostering in Barrowton, Lyanna clung to the presence of her old brother. She relished following him around, pretending to wield Valyrian steel as she swished Benjen's practice sword around.
She was eleven when Brandon told her the story of Danny Flint, the famed young woman who pretended to be a boy in order to join the Night's Watch, whose life was cut short after she was raped and murdered at the Nightfort.
It was a gruesome, dark tale for an eleven-year old girl, and it had earned Brandon a scolding for a week straight.
But from then on out, Lyanna stole Benjen's breeches and tunics as often as she could, and whenever she rode her silver horse Meraxes - until it died a couple of years later - you could hear her scream from the godswood, "I am Danny Flint!"
In the end, a party of twenty ended up riding out from Winterfell to the capital: Lord Rickard, Benjen, Ned, and a slew of his household. Brandon had ranted and raged, insisting to see his only sister wed, but Lord Rickard fixed his eldest with one stern look and said, "There must always be a Stark in Winterfell."
He would have made Benjen stay if it weren't for the fact that he and Lyanna were as close as twins, and besides that, Brandon was heir to the North. He needed to be in Winterfell alone; it would be his soon enough.
And so the Warden of the North, and two of his four children, set off for King's Landing to witness the first ever union between a wolf and a dragon.
Chapter 15: Welcome to Hell
Chapter Text
Under the cover of darkness, King's Landing was hardly more impressive than a sweeping fisher's town. The air was heavy with the stench of fish and feces, a raunchy scent that pervaded the senses immediately. With a pang, Lyanna wished for the clean smell of snow and ice of Winterfell.
Despite the hour, ragged children raced down the streets of Flea Bottom, chasing each other with squeals of delight, their skin patched with streaks of brown and red. Half-naked whores lounged outside tavern doors, their faces gaunt and glittering with determination, as filthy men grasped at their thighs and breasts.
Everyone, from men to women to children, stood rigid, at attention, when the gleaming white of the Kingsguard armor flashed in the moonlight. They stared up at Lyanna and Rhaegar with wide, pale eyes, hungry faces set in hesitant smiles and narrowed suspicion and rare apathy.
Lyanna tried to smile back, her heart sinking with sympathy at the state of the scared and hungry people. Beside her, Rhaegar waved to a group of boys who shrieked his name.
"Prince Rhaegar!"
Ser Arthur and Oswell tightened up, each one coming to flank them - Oswell on Lyanna's left and Arthur on Rhaegar's right, a human shield to separate her from the possible affects of the common people.
They approached a tall gate of blood red stone, dragons carved into the sides. The portcullis was raised and a Gold Cloak stood guard, nodding as they passed through.
A round of servants came rushing forth at their arrival, grabbing for their things slung over a wagon. Lyanna dismounted her horse quickly and quietly, standing uncertainly off to the side.
Oswell came over. "Come, my lady."
She followed as he walked behind Rhaegar and Ser Arthur. Inside the Red Keep, the stone was bleached pale in the moonlight, quiet even as she knew thousands of people resided there.
"Where are we going?" She asked in a whisper, afraid that if she raised her voice, the walls would shatter.
"The throne room," Rhaegar said, dropping back to walk beside her.
He'd been acting strange ever since she told them about her experience with Maggy. He watched her more, wrote letters more, although they'd had no ravens to send them.
"Why are we going to the throne room?"
Rhaegar sighed quietly. "To greet my father and mother."
At the mention of the Mad King, Lyanna stiffened. She'd only seen the king from afar, took in the ropes of silver hair and claw-like hands and beady, suspicious eyes. She didn't want to see that up close, to be forced to exchange with him.
A Kingsguard stood sentry at the massive doors that led to the throne room, a spray of white hair atop his head. His face was blank, but kind somehow.
"Ser Barristan," Rhaegar greeted the man.
"Your Highness," Ser Barristan bowed.
"How is the king?" Rhaegar dared to ask, sweeping his eyes over the doors.
"Asleep," Barristan answered, "the queen, however, awaits your arrival." At that, the White Knight pushed open the door.
Huge barrels of fire were burning heat into the throne room, their light casting serpentine shadows across the stone walls. Massive dragon skulls hung from the ceiling, pale and menacing, their largest teeth even taller than Ser Arthur or Rhaegar.
The Iron Throne was nothing like Lyanna imagined; thirty feet high, and forged of a thousand melted blades, it looked more like some monster from a nightmare than a seat for a king.
At a chair to the right sat a slim woman, her spiraling hair the same metallic shade as Rhaegar's. She had a beautiful face, oh it was beautiful, but she looked tired and sad. She stood when Rhaegar and Lyanna approached, immediately opening her arms for her son.
Lyanna watched Rhaegar embrace his mother, gently folding her into his arms, holding the queen as if she was glass. When she stepped back from his arms, she caught Lyanna's eyes and smiled.
"Come closer, lovely girl."
Lyanna's footsteps were quieter than whispers as she ghosted toward Queen Rhaella. She felt her heart pounding in her chest, her blood racing. She didn't know much of the wife of the Mad King, except that she was also his sister.
Would she be off-kilter like her brother-husband? Would she be cruel, or hot and cold by turns? Lyanna was curious of the woman who could both endure Aerys and produce Rhaegar.
Up close, the queen was terribly gorgeous. With violet eyes that glittered in an aristocratic face, Lyanna had no doubt where Rhaegar got his beauty from.
Queen Rhaella laid her hand upon Lyanna's cheek. "You must be Lyanna Stark. I am so pleased to meet you." She wrapped her arms around Lyanna's shoulders, smelling like a field of lavender.
"Pleased to meet you as well, Your Grace," Lyanna whispered. Over the queen's shoulder, Rhaegar watched her.
"I hear we have a wedding to plan," Queen Rhaella said with a gentle smile, roving her eyes over Lyanna's face.
Rhaegar stepped forward. "We do, Mother."
Rhaella's purple eyes brightened considerably. "I am so happy to welcome you to our family," she said to Lyanna, wrapping her arm around Rhaegar's elbow. "It's past time my son has wed, and you will make a beautiful bride."
At the mention of her joining with Rhaegar, ice filled Lyanna's veins. She managed a weak nod, casting her eyes to the floor. The crackle of flames filled the silence, and Lyanna wondered how many people had heard the same thing in this very room, the sound of fire the last thing they ever heard.
"I've had chambers prepared for you," the queen said kindly. "Ser Jaime," she called out.
At that, Lyanna's head snapped up. She'd been witness to the farce that was Jaime Lannister's induction to the Kingsguard, but she had not seen him in the throne room upon entering. The Young Lannister Lion looked proud even when his face was wiped of expression, hair like beaten gold pushed off his forehead.
"Please show Lady Lyanna to her rooms in the Maidenvault."
Jaime Lannister inclined his head and began to walk. Lyanna followed at his brisk pace, roaming her eyes over him. He couldn't have been much older than herself, sixteen perhaps if his slight frame was anything to go by. He was a beautiful specimen, golden hair and golden skin over white armor, but that swagger to his walk proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that Ser Jaime thought himself above escorting her anywhere.
He was quiet as a summer's wind as he led her through winding hallways and darkened corridors. The farther away they walked from the throne room, the safer she felt. Although the Red Keep was smaller than Winterfell, Lyanna felt as if Ser Jaime was leading her through a maze.
Finally they came through a towering oak door hinged in iron that screamed in defiance when Ser Jaime pushed it open. He led her to the door at the end of the hallway.
"Your chambers," he murmured lowly, then swiveled and strode away, the oak door falling shut behind him with a groan.
His mother looked heartbreaking in the flickering of the throne room, her skin pale but stark with the evidence of his father's...preferences - scratches, bruises, an indentation of teeth. Rhaegar wondered who had been fed to the flames recently.
"Are you well, Mother?" He asked softly, walking with her to Maegor's Holdfast, the castle within the Red Keep where the royal apartments were situated.
"Viserys is well," she answered, "and you are well, therefore I am well."
Rhaegar grimaced but knew not to persist. Queen Rhaella was a proud woman in her suffering and did not like to be fussed over, no matter how cruel the afflictions. He tightened his fist in rare anger, wishing once and for all his father was dead, rotting in the ground.
I just need an heir first... he thought. And then his mind inevitably went back to Lyanna and the fortune teller's prophecy. It was no coincidence; Lyanna and he were meant to have children, to create the three lives it would take to save the world from eternal darkness.
He already had half a dozen letters written and ready to be sent to Maester Aemon at the Wall.
"Quite a beauty," Rhaella mused. Rhaegar frowned, shaken from his thoughts. "Your betrothed," she clarified.
Rhaegar hummed. "She is lovely."
"You named her Queen of Love and Beauty."
He nodded. "I did."
Rhaella smiled that pretty smile only reserved for her two children. "She will make a good match for you."
"She dislikes me," he admitted, his mother's presence tearing truths from him.
"She distrusts you," Rhaella gently corrected him. "She's a young girl torn from her home and taken to the South."
Rhaegar pointed out, "She was intended for Robert Baratheon. Storm's End is in the South."
"Yes, dear," his mother allowed, "but the capital is no great place for a young girl, let alone a Northerner."
Rhaegar knew what his mother meant. This was no place for Lyanna because the king lived here, and anyone was privy to his moods. For the thousandth time, he teetered on the edge of telling his mother about his plans to overthrow his father, to reach up and cast him down from power.
But one thought kept him from spilling: if scratches and bruises and bites were what his father did to her when he was seeking pleasure, he didn't want to know what he'd do when the king sought vengeance.
Chapter 16: A Parent's Advice
Chapter Text
The open window filtered in a breeze hot and heavy with the stench of the city, coiling the weight of her dress around her legs like a snake.
"Close that window!" The small woman kneeling at Lyanna's feet barked. "And get me more pins!"
A frightened servant girl scurried out of Lyanna's rooms like her heels were on fire. Lyanna sighed, her feet aching fiercely from standing for hours on end, her skin raw from being pricked with needles a thousand times over.
For a week straight, a team of King's Landing's best tailors had come to Lyanna's rooms in the Maidenvault, all hellbent on creating the perfect wedding dress for the fast-approaching royal wedding. They were stern women, the seamstresses, bringing with them trunks of fabrics - chiffon, silks, Myrish lace, shining brocade - and pins and needles and thread and ribbons and beading.
It was a hellish nightmare from which Lyanna wished could wake up from and shake away. But, every morning when the sun peeked over the horizon, she was hustled from bed by the calloused hands and gruff accent of her new handmaiden.
After she had climbed from bed, the seamstresses would pile in her room and begin their work on her wedding dress. Lyanna was accustomed to the thick, practical wools of Northern ware, the simplicity of the muted colors, the warmth of the furs and leather.
Not the frilly silk frocks that the Southron girls boasted, their cleavage perpetually out on display for everyone to look upon.
But, as the head tailor had reminded her none too gently, this was no dress for a tea date or to dine with lords. This was a wedding gown for the soon-to-be princess of Rhaegar Targaryen, and it would look as such.
So, Lyanna closed her eyes, imagining the bite of the snows at Winterfell, and stood on shaky legs all throughout the days.
"Absolutely stunning," a silver voice said from her door. Startled, Lyanna looked up, met with the sight of Queen Rhaella.
The tittering seamstresses immediately abandoned their work to curtsy; the queen drifted forth, nodding her head at them, and came to Lyanna's side. "How are you, dear?"
It had been almost two weeks since Lyanna first arrived in King's Landing, and despite that length of time, she had mostly confined herself to the Maidenvault. She took her meals there and, besides the rotation of guards at the heavy oaken doors, she remained isolated.
She had only seen the queen a handful of times, and Rhaegar even less so; not that she minded, actually. She wished for her brothers more than she would ever wish for a Targaryen for company.
Still, Lyanna felt an odd sort of allegiance to the kind sister-queen of mad Aerys; the woman was staggeringly beautiful, a trait that had more than passed on to her eldest son, but she was also sweet and mindful. The bruises dotting Rhaella's lily-white skin, though, made Lyanna sick.
"I'm well, Your Grace," Lyanna murmured, trying to avoid those earnest amythest eyes.
"Call me Rhaella," the queen suggested gently, "we are to be family soon after all."
Tears of frustration welled in Lyanna's eyes, and she tilted her chin down to avoid eye contact. A thin, surprisingly warm finger tucked under Lyanna's chin, pushing up.
Rhaella's face was open and full of understanding, a muted kinship shining in her eyes. "Give us the room please," she said aloud. The seamstresses dropped their pins and beads, and scuffled away, shutting the door behind them.
"I know what it is to be scared to marry," Rhaella began, coming around to face Lyanna fully. With the sun shining so bright, the scratches marring the queen's skin were incredibly easy to decipher.
"On my wedding day, I tried to beg my father not to make me marry Aerys," Rhaella divulged, folding her hands together. "He was the not the kindest of brothers, and I knew he would not make the kindest of husbands." The scratches and bruises seemed to scream at Lyanna, begging for her attention, red and black like the colors of House Targaryen.
"Rhaegar," Rhaella said, her voice softening, "is not his father."
Lyanna's eyes widened, her heart pounding at her thoughts having been caught so easily. "I never-"
"Do not fret," Rhaella interrupted gently, "I know the saying. 'Every time a new Targaryen is born, the gods toss the coin in the air and the world holds its breath to see how it will land.'"
Lyanna nodded, feeling suddenly guilty. Hadn't she accused Rhaegar in the godswood at Harrenhal of being dragonspawn, of having tainted blood flow in his veins? Facing his mother, the gentle woman of exceeding beauty and kindness, Lyanna felt no more than a little girl playing at a woman.
"Rhaegar has always been special," the queen said, drifting around the room. "Melancholic in nature, my son is not cruel or wicked or selfish. He puts the needs of others before his own, and before long, you will be his wife." Rhaella looked into Lyanna's eyes, boring into them with a sudden ferocity. "He will never mistreat you. I taught him better than that."
Hot tears rolled down Lyanna's cheeks, as if she was reduced to a sniffling toddler in the mere presence of a loving mother. Rhaella tutted and strode forth, taking Lyanna into her arms; she soothed a hand down Lyanna's hair, shushing every time Lyanna sniffled or sobbed.
Eventually, when she'd calmed, Rhaella let her go, wiping a thumb across the tear tracks marking Lyanna's skin. She held Lyanna's chin between her finger and thumb, and admired the Stark girl's face.
"You will be good for Rhaegar," the queen said, voice thick with assured confidence, "and, if you let him, I think he could be good for you, too."
A week later, on Lyanna's sixteenth name day, the banners of House Stark were spotted on the Kingsroad. With only mere days left before the wedding, Lyanna's nerves were frayed, and she spent day and night running holes in her floor from worrying about her family's arrival.
The Mad King had assured her a few days into her stay at the Red Keep, that should her father and brothers not make it in time, the wedding would commence as scheduled and he would escort her down the aisle in lieu of Lord Rickard. The very thought of holding Aerys Targaryen's scabbed, bleeding arm as she waltzed through the Sept of Baelor to his son made Lyanna want to hurl...or at least hurl herself off a tower.
Seeing her father's face again, after so many months, made something thaw within her. Upon seeing him, Lyanna ran and jumped into his arms, bombarded with the smell of the North and home. Ned caught her next, gently folding her into an embrace, and then it was Benjen's turn, squeezing Lyanna tight within his wiry arms.
"Brandon?" Lyanna asked, although she knew the answer.
"There must always be a Stark-" Rickard began.
"In Winterfell," she added softly. She understood, had always known the rule of their family, but it still stung to be missing her oldest brother from arguably the most important event of her life.
"Lord Rickard," Rhaegar said from behind her, coming forth to greet her father. "I am pleased to meet you."
Rickard straightened, and bowed from the waist. "You as well, Your Highness."
"I apologize for the king's absence. He is unwell today."
Lyanna had thankfully been able to avoid the king's presence for the most part, but there were a few instances in which she was required to dine with the royal family, an unpleasant affair if there ever was one. The meals took thrice as long as any normal dinner should have, Aerys stopping every course to be tasted four times over by two different tasters before he would even think about taking a bite.
But it was when Aerys was alert, when his eyes weren't clouded over in thought, that made Lyanna's skin crawl. His eyes, no longer a dreamy purple so characteristic of the Targaryens, were black with suspicion, and they always seemed to be pointed on Lyanna.
"I understand," Rickard assured him.
"I am sure you are all tired from your long journey," Rhaegar said softly, "I've had rooms prepared for you in the Maidenvault, where Lyanna is currently staying. I would show you there myself, if that is alright with you."
Rickard nodded, and servants came forth to retrieve their meager luggage. Lyanna raced ahead, followed by a sprinting Benjen and a slower Ned. Left alone, Rhaegar and Lord Rickard made the trek to the Maidenvault side-by-side.
When Rhaegar was sure they were safely alone, he said, "I want to apologize, Lord Stark."
The older Northern man threw him a sharp look of confusion. "For what, Your Highness?"
"Call me Rhaegar," he insisted. "And I wanted to apologize for any trouble my engagement to Lyanna might have caused you with Lord Robert Baratheon."
Instead of offering assurances, or sweeping away Rhaegar's concern, Rickard said, "Lord Robert was admittedly incensed at the ruining of his betrothal to Lyanna. He grew...quite fond of my daughter."
"Rightly so," Rhaegar added diplomatically, pushing open the heavy oak door to the Maidenvault. The sounds of fevered chatter filled the long hall. He led Rickard to the first door on the right, where a fire was already burning flames against the dim light evening provided the room. Servants rushed in and out of the room, depositing trunks and bags, lighting candles that sat in a prim line atop the mantle.
When they left, Rhaegar shut the door behind them. "Lord Stark, as you were not present at the tourney of Harrenhal, I was unable to speak with you about a pressing issue."
"What issue?" Rickard asked gruffly, drinking deeply from the cup of wine left beside his bed.
"The issue of taking my father's throne," Rhaegar came out with it.
Rickard's eyes flashed up, and he set the cup down. "To speak of such is treason..." He said, testing the waters.
Rhaegar nodded, looking genuinely anguished at being reminded so. "I know. However, the realm suffers under his rule, and he grows madder with each passing day. He..." Rhaegar paused, swallowing, "feeds people to the flames for sport. I cannot allow this to go on any longer.
"I've sought to secure alliances with the Great Houses, so that when the time comes, I have the support I need to depose my father."
Rickard breathed deeply, feeling at once both extremely relieved and taut with worry: relief at knowing the realm could prosper once the gentle Dragon Prince came into power, but worry for his daughter who was soon to be a permanent fixture in the king's circle, privy to his moods at a whim's notice.
"You have the North's allegiance," Rickard vowed, kneeling before the prince. No matter if he did or didn't give his support to Rhaegar, his daughter would be a princess of House Targaryen, therefore it was in Rickard's best interest to remain in the loop.
"Thank you, Lord Stark," Rhaegar breathed, "your support is crucial."
Rickard stood, taking another drink from his wine cup. "When do you plan to take the throne?"
Sighing, Rhaegar said, with a hint of embarrassment, "Once Lyanna and I conceive a child. Should something happen to me in the chaos of overthrowing my father, I'll need an heir." My firstborn will be the Promised One, he remembered from Lyanna's fortune teller. The dragon must have three heads, but it needs the prince that was promised.
"I see," Rickard murmured. "I trust that you will keep my daughter safe in your father's midst? You will see no harm is done to her? You will treat her with respect and kindness?" It was over the line to ask such of a prince, as it was a husband's right to do whatever he wanted with a wife, but if Rhaegar Targaryen wanted the loyalty of the Starks, he'd damn well take precious care of the daughter of Winterfell.
"Of course, my lord," Rhaegar promised. "I assure you, I am not my father. And I will do my utmost to ensure her continued safety here in King's Landing."
Rickard nodded; he had never heard a bad thing uttered about Prince Rhaegar, had always heard the prince was just and well-read and a proven warrior, but there were secrets of the bedroom that might never become common knowledge and for that, Rickard wanted peace of mind that Lyanna would be cared for.
"Let me give you some advice, then, from a father about his daughter."
Rhaegar nodded, grateful for anything about the willful Northern girl he was soon to marry.
Rickard said, "Be careful with her, and take caution. She is of the North, and a wild thing because of it." Rickard caught himself smiling, thinking of his little girl at nine riding her lovely silver horse and shouting to the skies, 'I am Rhaenys Targaryen!'
"Lyanna is like a winter storm," he said, "beautiful to behold...but violent to withstand."
Chapter 17: An Iron Crown
Notes:
I was asked what I wanted Lyanna's wedding dress to look like, so I decided to include a picture.
Chapter Text
On the day of the wedding, the gods saw fit to send down a torrential rainfall that threatened to drown the city of King's Landing with its vigor; sheet after sheet of water poured from the sky, washing clean every surface it fell upon.
Lyanna thought it fitting, that perhaps it was the old gods, the gods of her father, that sought such vengeance on her wedding day. Because it was so gloomy, every available candle in the castle had to be lit, leaving behind disfigured humps of wax that dripped to the floor after hours of burning.
In the candlelight, Lyanna's wedding dress shimmered magnificently. It had taken three weeks to fully complete, with countless hours of Lyanna unwillingly on her feet as a model, but the result, she begrudgingly admitted, was breathtaking.
The dress' bodice was fashioned after a corset, with swaths of white lace sewn over top. The bodice was heavy with ornate beadwork, the lace embroidered with pearls in swirling seven-pointed star and crescent moon motifs.
A direwolf pin, silver and snarling, was set between her breasts, howling at the pearl moons and stars sewn into the lace corset.
From the waist down, the dress skirts flowed with sweeping layers of ivory silk and chiffon that were edged with fine cream-colored Myrish lace.
Her hair had been braided in several braids down her back, then twisted and pinned around each other to make a bun at the base of her neck. Wisps of loose hair fell around her face, tendrils wild and romantic-looking.
Her stomach was churning fiercely, like an old ship wading through the angriest of summer seas. She felt bile rise to the base of her throat, threatening and poisonous, and she wondered how angry the king would be if she vomited all over Prince Rhaegar.
Breathing deeply, Lyanna shrugged on her maiden's cloak and clasped the front; it was a comforting weight to her shoulders, but also a terrible, vivid reminder of what she had to expect at the end of the night - the loss of her virtue, her innocence, the very thing that drew the line between remaining a girl and becoming a woman.
The maiden cloak itself was beautiful, long gauzy material of the palest grey, a white growling direwolf of fine silk emblazoned over top. Its face was stamped with a thousand shimmering crystals, a luxury insisted upon and provided by the royal family, so that with every twitch of her shoulders the wolf shined brilliantly. One red eye, a magnificently fat ruby, winked in the light.
"You are beautiful," Lord Rickard said as he entered the room, clothed in the leather finery of the North.
She wrapped her arms around him, breathing in the scent of Winterfell and home. She wanted to cry, badly, but the tears wouldn't fall, instead blurring her vision so badly she couldn't distinguish the hazy human-shaped forms bustling around her.
Good, she thought, maybe I won't have to look at Rhaegar at the altar.
"Are you ready?" Her father asked, taking her elbow gently.
She shoved the heel of her hand across her eyes impatiently and nodded, lifting her chin up like a warrior going off to battle. I am a wolf of Winterfell, she thought to herself, and I will not kowtow to dragons.
But the walk to the Sept of Baelor felt like a death march; with each step, she felt fainter and sicker, and for the first time she found herself wondering if this would have been any better had it been Robert Baratheon she was walking to.
But that thought was useless, definitively so as two pages pulled open the massive doors to the Sept and the room was open to her. She took in the unfamiliar surroundings with distaste and revulsion.
This is how the Southerners worship? Lyanna thought unkindly.
The sept was built with seven soaring walls of smooth, unblemished stone; at each of the seven walls stood a towering statue to represent one of the Seven gods, each inlaid with so many precious jewels and gems that, if sold, could feed the poverty of King's Landing for years.
The windows were shaped like seven-pointed stars, every point a different color of dyed glass. The thick rainfall outside dripping down the windows threw warped shadows across the floors, and the ten thousand candles shimmering from the perimeter of the room cast dancing light against the walls.
Lyanna wished they would burn the entire massive place down.
Among the crowd, she hardly recognized a single face, though they all stared unabashedly at her - some smiling, some curious, some hateful. She held tight to Rickard's arm as they floated down the center aisle, both Starks keeping their eyes straight forward.
Ned and Benjen stood on the left side of the audience at the very front, both smiling encouragingly at her. She felt her heart sink, her sickness returning, and she wanted to run, run, run.
They climbed the steps that led to the altar before the looming statues of the Mother and Father, and Lyanna's nails dug into her father's hand as he brought her forth to the prince.
In her last act of defiance as a free woman, she stared at the hollow of Rhaegar's throat as the High Septon began his droning. He talked so long and so much that Lyanna was unsure if anyone was even truly listening to him.
She surely wasn't.
And that was why, after a time, as her eyes focused in and out on a point on the prince's black velvet doublet, she jumped when he squeezed her hand.
Her eyes flashed up without meaning to and she was struck with a sudden inexplicable awe by Rhaegar's beauty as she took in her soon-to-be husband on her wedding day.
Had she ever looked at him so closely before? His skin was lily-fair, but not lackluster at all; no, it seemed to shine from within with a pale glow that burned your eyes if you looked too long. His cheekbones were angled and sharp, his mouth full and pink.
His eyes bore into her with an apathy that rivaled Lyanna's, their color beautiful and unsettling, dreamy indigo swirled with amethyst. All around his face tumbled locks of silver-gold hair, hair that tickled her collarbones as he bent forward to whisper, "Turn around."
She did so mindlessly, bowing her head as she bared her back to him. Long pale fingers reached around to her throat, fumbling with the clasp there and the comforting weight of her maiden's cloak suddenly disappeared from her shoulders.
She felt naked and exposed without it and she fed into the urge that told her to run away, run as fast as you can.
But before she could, another weight, heavier and hotter, was placed over her shoulders and those pale hands were at her throat again, securing the new velvet cloak to her body.
She wanted to scream, but her mouth seemed wired shut.
She turned to face Rhaegar again and a thin strip of white silk was placed over their joined hands. Together they spewed meaningless words after the septon, putting no feeling or emotion into the vows they echoed to one another.
These are not my gods, she reminded herself, these words mean nothing to me. I have not vowed myself to him before a heart tree, therefore I am not truly married.
Even as she thought it, there was a decided lack of conviction; she was in a wedding dress with his dragon's cloak on her shoulders, her family minus Brandon watching as she bound herself to the prince in the Southron fashion. There was no undoing this.
Unless...
Maggy's rasping voice suddenly filled her head. "Your maidenhead will stay intact long after your wedding night, but you will birth children. Three to be exact."
A dark triumph filled Lyanna's heart. She didn't know the prince well, but he didn't strike her as a rapist; and if he tried anything out of sort, she'd stab him with the fruit knife hidden in her bodice. If she could hold out from laying with him long enough, perhaps their marriage could be set aside.
As for the three children...well, that part is wrong, she decided. She'd become a septa before she ever gave the silver prince the pleasure of fucking her.
"Kneel," the High Septon said to her gently. She went to her knees, the tail of her Targaryen cloak trailing behind her like a black river. The septon plucked something dark and shining from a pillow behind him and came forth to her.
In his hands was a crown - a crown wrought in the shape of twisting vines pricked with thorns and accented with metal roses; the vines were made of black iron, the thorns ornamented with drops of diamonds fashioned after morning dew, and the roses were iron inlaid with chips of sparkling sapphires.
Thorny winter roses made of gems on a circlet of black iron vines. The crown was pressed into her hair, banding around her forehead to the back of her head snugly.
She stood, ignoring Rhaegar's offered hand.
Their vows and her crowning finished, and his cloak on her shoulders, the High Septon urged them to seal their fresh marriage with a kiss. Rhaegar leaned forward and Lyanna stared right through him, angling her head away at just the right moment so he kissed just outside the corner of her mouth.
She turned away before he could try again or scowl or whatever else, and faced the applauding crowd. They were a sea of blurry faces, but four she could make out.
Her father smiling gently at her, Ned and Benjen doing the same, although the latter two seemed decidedly more impressed by their surroundings. All three Stark men looked distinctly out of place, though, fish out of water, wolves in a dragon's nest.
It was the fourth face that surprised her, the one she hadn't expected to see at all, maybe ever again. It was a handsome face, set into an anvil jaw, eyes blue and stormy like the seas he ruled, hair dark over his forehead.
Robert Baratheon stared at her with an unsettling combination of lust, regret, and rage. He wanted her, that much she could tell, even as black velvet pooled over her shoulders and down her back. Robert's blue eyes left her, flicking angrily to her left.
At her side, a hand whose blood ran with fire clasped hers.
Chapter 18: Steel and Weirwood
Chapter Text
The blade was long, dangerously sharp, and seemed to have been folded in on itself half a thousand times until the Valyrian steel glinted red and orange in the light. The sword's pommel was shapen like a dragon's head, dark and ominous with two ruby eyes; the dragon's wings were wide and unfurled, set as the hilt, and its scales were alternating chips of onyx and garnet.
Balerion the Dread reborn in gems and steel.
"Thank you," he breathed to his father, who seemed overcome with a rare moment of normalcy.
The wedding gifts from their guests had been taken to Rhaegar's solar as each party arrived in the time leading up to the wedding; presents had been waiting anywhere from weeks to mere hours, but Aerys and Rickard's gifts were to be bestowed upon the bride and groom at the wedding feast.
Aerys' gift to his son and the new princess was a tall Valyrian steel sword. "It needs a name," the king rasped. Down the table, Viserys bubbled with irritation at being kept away from the sword.
Rhaegar studied the blade, glancing at Lyanna to see her grey eyes wide in awe and appreciation; he wanted to pass it to her, to let her run her pale little hands over it, to marvel at its beauty. But to do that would risk Aerys' paranoia, his irritability, and Rhaegar had no want to provoke his father.
House Targaryen hadn't had an ancestral sword since Blackfyre, and Dark Sister before that. He swiveled the blade in hand again, watching the play of fiery red in the grey steel, steel as dark as his bride's eyes.
Lyanna's House had a greatsword, almost 400 years old, acquired by the Starks after it was forged in Valyria; it was named Ice, aptly so as it resided in the North.
Rhaegar smiled; it was poetic almost, that his bride's ancestor wielded a blade called Ice, and she was the ice to his fire, one half of his destiny, the woman with which he'd make children, the mother to his promised prince.
"Fire," he announced, allowing his voice to carry over the hall. The guests exploded in applause, lords and ladies and children alike fascinated by the new greatsword of House Targaryen.
'Ice' in the north, he thought wryly, and 'Fire' in the south.
A servant came rushing forth as Rhaegar carefully set Fire in its long wooden box inlaid with a bed of velvet; the boy took the box from Rhaegar, and Rickard stepped away from his seat beside Lyanna at the dais and came around to the front.
A servant passed off something large and flat to him, covered in a draping of fur. Rickard carefully set his gift before Rhaegar and Lyanna, peeling away the fur as he stepped back.
It was a shield, almost as tall as Fire, and made of beautiful, smooth weirwood. The shield was edged in gorgeous glinting red-enameled steel, but the plane was what was so captivating.
Smooth and pale the weirwood was except for the face carved into the front of the shield, long and melancholy, the eyes seemed to judge and see, even without pupils to watch. It was a face like the Children of the Forest had etched into the heart trees hundreds of years ago, its eyes even bleeding red sap somehow. It was a little piece of the godswood, of Winterfell, of the old gods to watch over his little Northern wife.
Lyanna grabbed her father around the neck and hugged him across the table. Northerners were not particularly known for their openness, for their generosity in emotion, which is why most of the hall seemed to watch in fascination as the noble and stoic Starks laughed with each other.
Rickard came back around the table to reclaim his seat once more beside Lyanna, and the shield was taken away to its rightful place next to Fire; Rhaegar hoped the sword and shield would be enough to protect them both from the fiery moods of his father.
Afterward, the food was brought out, some twenty-five courses of duck and deer and boar and vegetables and fruits and sweets. It took well over three hours to finish the meal, and with Dornish red and Arbor gold flowing freely, most of the guests were well and truly drunk by the time plates were cleared.
The musicians, who had up until that point been playing slow and soothing music, picked up the tempo and played bawdy songs that begged to be danced to. Benjen stole his sister immediately for a dance, and Rhaegar noticed how even the skeptical lords and ladies couldn't help but watch her.
Rhaegar certainly couldn't. In that stunning dress of gauzy, sweeping silk and with that crown on her head, he never wanted to look away.
It was something about her with the crown. Perhaps it was seeing all his hard weeks of idealism and work come to life, and with the woman of his prophecy donning it.
Aside from small council meetings, last minute wedding preparations, training with the Kingsguard, and receiving grievances, all Rhaegar did was work with the royal jeweler on her crown.
The jeweler, at first, had insisted on it being gold, silver at the very least, the stuff of princesses and queens. But Rhaegar couldn't approve that.
Lyanna was beautiful of course, but he could see the iron underneath.
And thus he insisted on iron, black iron forged in the shape of twisting vines blooming with winter roses, the sapphires of which brought out their likeness to the true flowers that grew in the North. Only at the end of the process had the jeweler suggested drops of diamonds fashioned like morning dew on the tips of the rose thorns.
And Lyanna looked absolutely captivating in it, from the moment the High Septon placed it on her head to now, with her dancing wildly with her brother.
Only a few feet away, at a place of higher honor than the other guests due to their relation to the royal family, were Robert and Stannis Baratheon. Stannis was scowling as per usual, the boy never having learned what it was to not be so angry all the time; but Robert, who always seemed quick to laugh and even quicker to jape, was frowning deeper than his grumpy brother, his blue eyes set on Rhaegar's wife.
No doubt Robert was imagining a completely different scenario, one in which Lyanna was dancing in the circle of his strong, thickly-muscled arms, waiting to be taken to bed.
Rhaegar could have laughed, if it didn't perturb him so much. Lyanna and Robert hadn't known each other very long, and their betrothal hadn't even been officiated, barely more than an offer of a hand. What was it about her that entranced the Stormlord so?
Rhaegar had his own reasons for wanting the girl now. She was beautiful, sure, and had a famous name, but she was his ice, his winter princess.
For what reason did Robert Baratheon pout?
Rhaegar stood from his place and walked out onto the floor, ignoring the pleading looks from the many noble ladies that waited for partners. Instead he strode to Lyanna, who was currently in the arms of Ned Stark, and politely asked to cut in.
Lyanna's smile seemed to die, like snow on fire, when Rhaegar took her into his arms. "Are you having a good time?"
Lyanna made a noise in the back of her throat. "I was until you interrupted my dance with my brother."
Rhaegar almost smiled, taken back to the swift days of Harrenhal when a quick bite was always on the tip of her tongue. "I apologize for that, Princess."
She stiffened at the title, but made no comment, no move to further the conversation. Rhaegar thought of her gift waiting in the stables.
"I have a present for you," he said.
She leaned back from his close embrace, looking up into his eyes. "You already gave me a present," she said, tipping her head so that the sapphires in her crown glinted.
"Yes," he agreed, "but I have something else for you. Something I believe you will enjoy more."
Lyanna was not the sort of lady ensnared with jewels and finery, and although a princess required a crown, he knew that Lyanna was indifferent about hers. His other gift, however, he believed she would love; or at least, he hoped she would.
"When do I get it?" She asked hesitantly, almost as if she believed he was lying.
"Before the bedding," he said, and she stilled instantly.
This was where Rhaegar knew things would get murky. She hadn't even allowed him to kiss her on the mouth in the Sept of Baelor after the union, and she was awkward in his arms; there was no doubt in his mind that the only "laying" he'd be doing tonight was with the cold sheets of his own bed.
And while that might have usually sent a rush of frustration in his veins, or at the very least urgency to fulfill the prophecy, he'd already been given inadvertent assurances that she was the right person to complete the other half of his prophecy. He didn't mind waiting because he knew Lyanna was the fabled "ice."
He had obsessively went over every word Lyanna had repeated of this Maggy that night on the road, had exchanged half a dozen letters with Aemon at the Wall, discussing the words of Maggy and comparing them to what they knew of the prophecy. It all came together, like a beautiful painting that finally revealed its picture.
One day Lyanna would come around, and they would have their three children, and that was enough for Rhaegar.
A sharp clap stopped the music and Rhaegar turned to see his father on his feet, glaring over the sea of guests. "It is time for the bedding!"
Where Southern tradition usually dictated the bride and groom be stripped and carried off by the guests to the marriage bed, royal weddings were different. It was unseemly for lords and ladies to see their royals in states of undress, therefore another tradition was instilled.
Instead, the prince and princess, or king and queen, were escorted by four of the Kingsguard to Maegor's Holdfast, where one knight was left outside the doors to stand witness to the consummation.
Sers Arthur, Oswell, Jaime, and Lewyn were chosen for the duty that night; they came forth, Arthur and Oswell flanking Rhaegar's left and Jaime and Lewyn flanking Lyanna's right as they were ushered out of the hall, their exit paraded by a rumble of cheers and claps from the guests.
However, instead of going to his chambers in the Holdfast, he walked the group through the castle toward the stableyard where Lyanna's present waited. She was looking nowhere in particular, her eyes wide yet unseeing, and therefore did not ask questions until she started, recognizing the smell of hay and horses.
His squire, a new boy named Richard Lonmouth, came forth with Lyanna's gift. It was a great Sand Steed from Dorne, its coat a beautiful blue-grey color that gleamed like steel even in the evening light.
Its mane, the same beautiful grey, was wavy and woven with bright blue winter roses that Rickard Stark had brought south with him at Rhaegar's insistence.
Lyanna stopped, lips parting in awe as she stared at the nickering horse. Rhaegar leaned over, murmured against her ear, "Your gift, Princess."
She hesitantly walked forward, as if she was in a dream, and smoothed a hand over the horse's neck. "Beautiful," she whispered, words lost in the strong breeze that blew after the long day of harsh rain.
"It needs a name," Rhaegar pointed out, enjoying the play of the smile on her lips.
"Smoke," she said immediately, tilting her head in affection as she rubbed at her horse's jaw.
"Good name," Rhaegar said. He allowed her a few more minutes to pet Smoke before he spoke again. "Lyanna."
She jerked her head toward him, seeming almost surprised that he was still there.
"Ser Jaime and Ser Lewyn will take you to the Holdfast now."
She clenched her jaw and anger seemed to flood her vision. Her eyes twitched to narrow at him, and she ran her tongue over her teeth like a predator, but she jerked her head in a nod. Her legs carried her quickly away, Jaime and Lewyn quickly following behind her.
When she was out of sight, Rhaegar sighed deeply. "She will make this marriage difficult," he said aloud to Arthur and Oswell. If there was anything he knew about Lyanna Stark in their short time of acquaintance, it was that she was stubborn and only did what she wanted. And right now, she did not want Rhaegar. He wondered why the gods were so cruel to make her one-half to the most important prophecy of time then, when her choices were dictated by the moods that seemed as cold as Winterfell and hot as the long-dead Balerion's flames.
"Yes," Arthur agreed, "she will."
Then why, he wondered, why does she have to be my 'ice'?
Chapter 19: The Marriage Chambers
Chapter Text
The only difference between me and a prisoner, Lyanna thought, is that they do not lead me by chains.
For all the noise they made, Sers Jaime and Lewyn could have been the ghosts of King's Landing. When they marched her toward Maegor's Holdfast, they did so looking straight ahead with emotionless countenances, ever the dragon's soldiers in their clinking white armor.
She eyed their backs, wondering if she slipped away quietly, how far she could make it before they noticed. They were Kingsguards of course, but she was quick, had grown up outfoxing her brothers through the twists and turns of Winterfell.
What were two Southron Knights to a slew of Northmen, to a Stark?
The only thing that kept her following, that kept her from bolting was the potential embarrassment at being found wandering the confusion of the Red Keep, at being caught and dragged back to Rhaegar's chambers to be bedded.
Lost in her thoughts, Lyanna stopped mere inches from ramming into Ser Jaime's back. Ser Lewyn, the dark-skinned Dornish prince, had one arm bracing a large oak and iron door open.
Lyanna stood firmly in place, rooting her feet to the floor. Her eyes flicked wildly to the open doorway and then between the two Kingsguards.
"In you go, Princess," Ser Lewyn said in a flaring accent.
Her heart soared into her throat as she turned to look where they had come from. It was a long hallway and she was sure she could outrace them down the length of it, but could she find her way out, to her family?
"Please don't," Lewyn said suddenly, softly, "I've no wish to drag you back here."
Tears flooded her vision and she was too scared to feel embarrassed at having been read so easily. Instead she silently walked through the open door, flinching when it shut behind her.
For all her bravado as a Stark, as the brave she-wolf who'd stab the dragon to save her hide, all Lyanna Stark felt was the purest anxiety boiling inside her.
She'd threatened Rhaegar before and with a sword of all things, before Ser Arthur Dayne and Ser Oswell. But that was in a godswood, where her gods held sway and would have lent her strength where needed.
The Targaryens didn't answer to gods, therefore she would find no help in faith within these castle walls.
She realized suddenly that she was in Rhaegar's room and she took the private moment to distract herself by admiring it.
It was large and airy, simple in its grandeur but no less nice. Dark tapestries hung from the walls, woven with motifs of fire-breathing dragons and melting cityscapes. A huge canopy bed was pushed against one wall, covered in black silk coverlings, its canopy falling from the ceiling like limp dragon wings.
Straight across from the door, set into the smooth stone of the wall, was a deep alcove, its entrance granted privacy by a thin, swaying curtain of gauzy red silk.
Curiously, Lyanna drifted over, fingers pulling back the curtain. Set into the cozy alcove was a marble bathing pool, chipped with lapis lazuli and gold. It was bone dry, and the sight of it stole the moisture from Lyanna's throat.
She tore away from the bathing alcove quickly, as if fire struck her skin. She needed to stop pissing off, and actually get her ass into motion; Lyanna wanted to be out of her wedding gown and into something less appealing when he finally came, breeches from Rhaegar's dressers perhaps.
She hastily tore the crown from her head, gracelessly tossing it on the end of Rhaegar's bed where it landed silently in the silks. Then she began to rip the pins from her head, throwing them to the ground before uncoiling her bun and unraveling the braids with a wild sense of urgency that burned through her quicker than wildfire.
Her Targaryen cloak joined the crown on the bed, the length of black velvet and shimmering rubies landing in a soft heap.
She was just attempting to unsuccessfully untie the laces of her corset when the door opened and Rhaegar ghosted inside, pausing when he caught her struggling wildly against her wedding gown.
"Hello," he said, confusion evident in his tone. In the brace of his hands was a simple wooden box, its lid open to reveal a bed of dark blue velvet.
Lyanna allowed her arms to fall at her sides, taut as a loaded crossbow when he began to approach her. Fingers twitching for the fruit blade tied into her bodice and the confidence to wield it, she was surprised when he reached past her to carefully pick up the jeweled iron crown on his bed.
He deposited it gently inside the box and strode toward the nightstand to set the box down. He half-turned back to her, purple eyes falling down her form.
"Would you care for wine, Princess?"
Her heart thudded oddly. "No."
Rhaegar nodded. He went to grab her cloak and shook it out before folding it neatly and bringing it to sit beside her boxed crown.
With his back to her, he began to shed his doublet, the belt at his waist, and then the black tunic he'd worn underneath it all. His skin was lovely silver in the combination of evening and firelight, and she was surprised to see a few red scars lining his shoulder blades and spine.
She tugged her lip between her teeth, studying the scars when he suddenly turned around. Her eyes widened; his chest was hard, but his waist was lean and ridged with sleek muscle. He had a warrior's body.
"What are you doing?" The words left her mouth before she could stop them, and she found herself searching his blank face for any clue of longing or desire. Both of which she found none.
"Getting ready for bed," he answered simply.
True to form, she couldn't help but crassly blurt, "I'm not going to fuck you." She clenched her fists to keep the strength to her face, but the words had curdled her stomach.
His brows knitted together in mild disgust as he shoved off his boots and raked a handful of silver hair from his face. "I wasn't planning on fucking you, Lyanna."
"We aren't going to have sex?"
At that his eyes flashed up, twin amethysts glinting. "Not unless you wish it. Which judging by that poor excuse of a kiss in the sept, I doubt you do."
Relief flooded her, but beyond that she was skeptical. "A prince needs heirs."
Rhaegar hummed in his throat, peeling back the silk coverlings on his bed. "Yes," he said, climbing in, "but this prince will not rape his wife to get them."
She almost felt the need to insist again, before she stopped herself. What was she thinking, she was getting her way! She wasn't going to be made to open her legs for this stranger, wouldn't be forced to swell her belly with his seed.
If anything, he was assisting her plans to have their marriage one day set aside. The Mad King would eventually find another girl for his son to mount, and she'd be free to live her remaining days within the walls of Winterfell. Everything was coming together perfectly.
A rasping voice scratched at her thoughts. "And you will only ever go home to Winterfell once more in your life."
It was Maggy's voice, grinding like rocks, harsh and insistent in her mind. No, the woman may have known she'd marry Rhaegar and that her maidenhead would stay intact on her wedding night, but everything else she'd been wrong about. Lyanna would be sure of it.
Rhaegar turned on his stomach in the bed, pressing his face into the pillows that lay there. She sighed and once more attempted to wrangle apart the laces of her corset, but for all her efforts, all she could manage was to grow a hotter dislike for Southron handmaidens.
Sensing there was only one way out of her predicament without resorting to sleeping in the bulk of silk and chiffon, she shuffled over to the right side of the bed, tapping a finger against Rhaegar's smooth shoulder.
He lifted his head from the pillow, tired eyes shifting to her. "Yes?"
She clenched her jaw before answering, "I can't get out of my dress."
Something lightened his face then, a fatigued sort of amusement, as he pushed up and sat on the edge of the bed. With featherlight fingers, he turned her around and began plucking at the ties of her corset like they were harp strings.
The corset sagged open and the dress fell from her body, leaving her naked back and smallclothes exposed to him. She went to grab for her dress to shield her body when something soft and absolutely divine-smelling fell over her head and shoulders.
"Arms up," Rhaegar said softly. She complied, and he pulled the shirt over her arms and down her torso.
When she looked down, she almost smiled. It was Rhaegar's black tunic, the one he'd been wearing all day, the tunic that had been wrapped in his scent from sun up to sun down.
The shirt hung to the middle of her thighs, enough to cover her smallclothes, and she stepped out of the silk puddle on the floor that was her wedding dress.
She pulled the long sleeves of the tunic taut so that she could fist the material in her hands. "Thank you," she muttered softly, affording him a quick glance.
"You're welcome," he said back, taking in her image as she came around to the left side of the bed. She peeled back the silk, and climbed in, utterly surrounded by Rhaegar's scent, something so amazing that she could hardly resist pressing her face into the pillows and breathing deeply.
Together in the bed, though, they were surrounded by a deep, horribly uncomfortable silence. She lay in his sheets, taut as a strung bow, waiting for something awful to happen, waiting for him to outgrow his patience and take her violently.
Robert Baratheon would have had her clothes torn off and his cock deep inside her before she'd had time to take her hair down. The image of her small body pinned beneath the Stormlord's bulging muscles made her skin crawl. Rhaegar was no lustful stag, but a mighty dragon.
As the minutes crept on, and the headache in her temples grew to a startling pain, she finally flipped over, tired of the anxiety rushing through her.
But Rhaegar was fully asleep, his lovely face eased and content, full mouth parted. She watched him, propping herself up on one elbow as he breathed deeply, in and out and in and out. Lyanna found that he was utterly endearing in his vulnerable state.
There was something about him that was just so interesting to look at. Perhaps it was his coloring, those Valyrian looks; but no, that couldn't be it, because King Aerys was silver-haired and purple-eyed and she could hardly bear to look at him.
It was something in the shape of Rhaegar's face perhaps, the fine bones and slant of his structure, the fullness of his mouth that bordered on the obscene if you looked too long. At the very least she could say that she had a beautiful husband.
For however long she would have him before she got their marriage annulled.
She hesitantly reached one hand out to trace the sharp curve of his jaw, jumping when his hand shot out to grasp it. Lyanna's eyes flashed up, expecting to see him awake, but he was still asleep, breathing contentedly and holding her hand in his.
As gently as she could, she pulled away from his grasp and settled back into the pillows. His scent wafted over her and her mind began to drift, wondering how many girls had graced these sheets before her.
Not as many as Robert Baratheon probably; that man was legendary in his renown for shooting his seed in between whatever pair of legs were open to him. Somehow Rhaegar didn't strike her as the type to bed down with whores, to frequent brothels.
Mind drifting, she curled onto her stomach, pressing her nose into the pillow and wishing she could sneak out of the Holdfast and grab her new horse, Smoke, and ride for the North. She willed herself to relax, to forget where she was and remember the pretty grey sheen of Smoke, the winter roses braided in its mane.
It was only hours later that she was able to fall into a fitful sleep, tossing and turning in the dark sheen of Rhaegar's bed, his room stifling hot from the crackle and pop of the bright flames in his fireplace.
Rhaegar rested deeply through the night beside her, silent and deadly, a lovely, sleeping dragon while she dreamt that she was a wolf racing through the godswood of Winterfell, the taste of dragonblood on her fangs.