Wife of the Wolf, Husband of the Sun

Chapter Eighty-Six

Elia's heart ached to watch from atop the walls of Riverrun as her husband, her sweet Ned, readied himself to ride off to war. In truth, she could not see him as he was too far away from the walls now but she could see the grey wolf on white of House Stark flapping in the breeze above the large host of men with dozens and dozens of other banners from the North, as well as the Riverlands, the Vale, The Stormlands and Dorne. And her husband would be right in the middle of it.

The massive host outside the walls would soon be divided into multiple smaller ones, though each would still be thousands strong. A host of twenty thousand which was made up of Northmen and Stormlanders and knights of the Vale would ride up to the Golden Tooth and lay siege on it while at the same time those hosts of Dornish men that had ridden up into the West would lay siege on to the castle from the other side.

Ned would be with that host, he had told her the night before as they had been in bed together after they had lain together for what had been the third time that night and Elia had rested her head on his chest while Ned had been stroking her hair so gently as they just tried to savour the little island of peace they had found in the chambers that Lord Hoster had provided for them.

She never wanted to leave, just like Jenny in her song. She wanted to stay in this bed with her husband who was always so gentle with her that at times it seemed like he was a completely different man when he was away from his lords and the men who would follow him. She wanted their sons to be with them, slumbering in between them and she wanted Lyanna to be back from wherever Rhaegar, in his foolishness, had taken her.

Elia Martell wanted.

But wanting did not mean having or getting. There was a war that needed to be won.

As Ned would ride to the Golden Tooth, a host of rivermen under the command of Brynden Tully would go and lay siege on Maidenpool. Lord Mooton's loyalty to Aerys and his craven attacked on the men who had fallen back from the Crownlands meant that none of his fellow countrymen would be quick to forgive him and removing the King's one foothold in the Riverlands was too important a task to be left until later.

And then finally, the third host under the command of Jon Arryn and Hoster Tully would ride into the Crownlands, when they were planning their next move it was decided by all that the most likely next action that Lord Tywin and Lord Mace would take would be to return to their own lands to defend them from the raiders from Dorne and the reavers from the Iron Islands.

Therefore, as the pass at the Golden Tooth was not available to them then they would have to go into the Reach as it was the quickest route to the West, once there they would need to chase the Dornish raiders up and down their kingdoms in order to try and stop them and that was before they had to deal with the Ironborn and thus most of their strength would be scattered and weakened.

So, Arryn and Tully would set themselves a bloody grind down through the Crownlands until they reached King's Landing where they would lay siege to the capital and for what seemed like the hundredth time since she had returned to Riverrun she wanted to slap Oberyn for not waiting for her husband and his Northmen and the men from the Vale to arrive.

If he had they maybe Lord Randyll would not have been able to cut through his host and turn it into a route, if he had just waited then maybe he would be with a large army outside the walls of King's Landing, laying on a siege and not in bed, dead to the world and where at any moment the Stranger could come to claim him.

But Oberyn had never been known for his patience, his skill at arms and his wanderlust and his lust for women and his lust for men and his wilfulness and collecting his daughters from all across the world like they were kittens were all of the things that he was known for. If there was ever a moment that she wished Doran was here, then it was now. Doran would know to be patient, Doran would know to wait.

If Oberyn ever woke again then Elia would be certain to slap him for being such a fool after she was done hugging him and thanking the Mother for her mercy. But Oberyn's eyelids had not so much as fluttered since the day that she had arrived at Riverrun. His chest would rise and fall and they were able to feed him by smearing honey on his lips but he would not rouse from his slumber.

Elia shook her head as she felt another wave of tears building behind her eyes, she has sworn to herself that she would be strong. She had sworn that she would be strong, that she had to be and that she would not weep and yet so far she had not been able to keep that promise. Just the thought of Oberyn laying in the bed, paler than he had ever been before, the most alive man she had ever known reduced to that.

Her little brother.

A rough sob burst out of her throat and she could not stop it, but it was only the one and while her eyes did burn, not a single tear rolled down her cheek. Weeping could wait for later when this was done. A war needed to be won first, she always had to remember that. She could not lose sight of that, she could fall into grief once it was done.

If she was to look for any fair news, there had been word of fires in the Kingswood. They had all thought that Lady Nymeria Toland had either died or had been taken captive and sent to King's Landing to suffer his mercy, it might be yet that had indeed happened but even if Nym had been captured at least some of the men she had commanded were still free and were causing trouble for Aerys. It at the very least meant that the Mad King might sleep a little less soundly in his bed and Elia would take every little victory that she could.

Out in the distance she watched as the banners of House Umber and House Karstark moved closer to the wolf of her husband's house and Elia knew that she should feel better he was not going into war alone, he was surrounded by thousands upon thousands upon thousands of loyal men but that did not do anything to make her feel better. All it took was one arrow and Ned was not a man to command from the back, he would not order a man to do anything he would not do himself.

Lord Rickon Umber's massive son had clapped a hand on her shoulder so hard earlier this morning that for a moment he thought that he had broken her shoulder it had hurt so much. But he hadn't and they had laughed it off, well, Jon Umber had laughed it off and Elia had rubbed at her shoulder as Ned had frowned at him.

But Jon Umber had sworn to her that he would bring Ned back to her completely whole and before she knew it and if nothing else the man was so tall and so broad that he would be good for Ned to use to hide from arrows, the man seemed so ready to fight that most likely he would would take every single arrow with a smile and brag about it afterwards. If he was still alive.

His Father at the very least seemed to have more sense in his head, as most older men tended to be when they were compared to their sons, and he was leading the Umber men to the Golden Tooth under Ned as the vanguard, that had apparently caused some consternation with the Glovers as they did not like the idea of the Umber's leading the van but Ned had told her that the Umbers wouldn't have been happy if they had to march behind the Glovers.

Maybe that was how it would always be in the end, no matter how hard they they tried they would never be able to make choices that would make everyone happy and so instead they would just have to try and do the best they could. But who should they do their best for? For themselves or for others, Elia didn't know. She didn't know why she was crying either.

She brushed her tears away as soon as she heard someone approaching, she looked up expecting it to be Nym coming to seek her for some comfort, which was something else that she needed to worry about as while she would never turn away any of her brother's children if they needed comfort but it was rare that her brother's eldest daughters ever had need of it from her.

But after Nym had seen the sight of her Father laying in that damned bed had hurt the poor girl so badly, sending her running from the room in tears. At times it was hard to remember at times, with her brother putting weapons in their hands as soon as they could walk, that they were still children. Nym was barely more than a little girl and Obara could barely be called a woman.

She must have killed someone by now, it was a disquieting thing to realize. That the small girl that her brother had brought home from the Reach who had never trusted any of them and always to be on the lookout for any sort of threat and would jump if anyone raised their voice even slightly around her and whose only true joy seemed to be sparing and training with her Father was now riding out to war and she would need to kill in order to do her duty and to survive.

The whole world seemed to have lost it's mind, as of late. She finished brushing her tears away and looked up with a word of comfort for Nym on the tip of her tongue but it wasn't her bastard niece who had come to find her, it was Howland Reed. The heir to Greywater Watch was garbed in a green shirt made of roughspun and a pair of brown woolen trousers and rough pieces of leather on his feet that might be called shoes in the Neck.

The North was one of the poorer kingdoms of Westeros and the Neck was one of the poorest parts of it, rich only in mud and giant poisonous plants and acorns and frogs and lizard lions, and so Elia knew that it was not his fault for his garb looking more like it would serve better for a servant than for a lord of the Neck. But when it came to Howland Reed, Elia did not feel like being magnanimous.

She had not forgiven him for the lies that he had told her, those cruel lies that had cut through her deeper than any other and near as much killed her.

Still, he was one of her husband's bannermen and she would not risk his life by throwing the crannogman into the Moat even if there was nothing else in that moment she would like to do more and so she forced the urge as deep down in herself as she could and clasped her hands in front of herself so tightly that she could almost hear her bones creaking underneath her skin.

She might have tried to force a polite smile on her face if he was anyone else, but he had no claim to her courtesy. "Yes, Lord Howland, can I be of aid to you? If not then might I suggest that you hurry away from me, surely my Lord Husband excepts you to be at his side after all." How Ned could still have such faith in the man she did not know, after he had been so cruel as to lie to their faces about what should have been their greatest joy.

He smiled at her then and Elia once again wished that it was more in her nature to have been more of a fighter, because in that moment she wanted nothing more than to hit him in the mouth and to break all of his teeth "I will be riding out in but a moment, my Lady. But before I do I wished to speak to you about something of great import to me, worry not as Ned does know that I am here and I speak to you now with his blessing."

It enraged her that Howland Reed would dare to speak the shortening of her husband's name, Ned only allowed those dearest to him to do so and the fact that this traitor and liar thought that he had the right, that it must have meant that Ned had allowed Howland Reed to call him that when they had been travailing together through the Seven Kingdoms during all of this chaos.

She would not have minded that so very much, Ned didn't know what had happened to their child until she had told him that day so he would have no reason to suspect that Howland Reed was an enemy but she had told him that she had lost the babe, the babe that Howland had sworn would be born a girl and would be a queen even if she wore no crowns whatever that was meant to mean, so Ned knew that the man's words had been lies and yet from Lord Howland's familiar tone was Elia to take it that her husband had not offered even the slightest of chastisement?

She would give away all the world and all that her heart held dear, would it be that she had all the freedom to scream as she so wished to in that moment. But she did not have that freedom and so she focused all her effort into keeping the smile on her face. "But of course, Lord Howland. What is it that you wish to speak to me off, it must be something of great important if you would keep you commander and your future Lord Paramount waiting, if he is waiting for you then in a sense the entire host is waiting for you."

"My Lady is right of course, so I will be straight to the point then. It seems that I owe you an apology." For a moment, Elia thought she must have gone mad. Had he just apologized to her? After all of this time, after the agony that had ripped through her, both in her heart and in her body? He dared to express his regret to her, as though that would make anything better.

Any thin veneer of civility that she had managed to present up to that moment was then throughout washed away like it had never been there and the smile slipped away from her face. "You wish to apologize to me?" Elia repeated and then she laughed, an ugly bitter thing. "What do your apologies mean to me, Lord Howland? Will it fix anything that has happened, will it suddenly make the malformed child that I brought into this world in blood and pain whole? Will it fill their lungs with air? Will it give me the ability to see what sex it had been born as, so I could see if it was the daughter that you promised me that it would be? Will your apologies do that, my lord?"

If Lord Howland felt any shame, then he hide it well from her as his face was naught but a calm mask and his voice was still. "The gods do not err, when they choose to speak to us. They tell us naught but the truth my Lady I can promise you that. But they are gods and I naught more than a mere mortal man and sometimes I can err in passing along their proper meaning, it has been known to happen. My words were naught but the truth, perhaps they will simply apply to your next daughter, or the one after that?"

"Or perhaps you do not speak to any gods at all." She was so tired of everything in that moment, that her words were filled with a greater sharpness than she had ever known. Even Doran with his betrayal had not enraged her as much as this did. "Perhaps you are naught but a liar, or a fool, or a madman. There is a great excess of them as of late, how can we be certain not to count you among their number."

She would feel a great deal better if Lord Howland would get angry at his words, or would show shame, some indication that what he had done to her left him with some sort of guilt. He had dangled the hope of a golden future in front of her, and then her life had ripped it away from her. But life would be deaf to her rage, and she thought that Howland Reed would make a much better target for it.

More fool her then, it seemed. "Aye, it might be that I am all of those things. And much worse besides that as well. But the past is the past, and I cannot change it no matter how much I might wish to. We can only look to the future, and do all that we can to secure it." Elia did not know what that meant, in that moment all she knew was that she felt so very tired.

Howland Reed seem to see that as well, his head tilted downwards. "But regardless, my Lady is quite right. Such a great and mighty host of men await me and it is not right for me to keep them waiting. I am fortunate indeed that there are no Rivermen in your husbands host, doubly so that there are no Freys. If they knew that the reason had been delayed because they were waiting on a bog devil then no doubt I will not hear the end of it. Good day my Lady, I am truly sorry for your grief."

And then he was gone, just as suddenly as he had come to her like the wind carried him away and Elia was left on her own with naught but her anger and all of the sum of her fears to keep her company. Tears began to roll down her cheeks and her hand came up to brush them away, grief would come later. She may not be riding off to war, but she had her own duties to attend and it would not do for her to cry.

And so once the armies had finally ridden off, their standards reduced to nothing but blurry colors off in the distance Elia set to her duty.

The first thing she did was find the steward of Riverrun, Utherydes Wayn, and they said that Dornishmen had strange names, and set herself to getting access to the ledgers of the castle so she could help manage the castle's accounts The steward did not seem all to keen at the idea at her doing it, considering that for all intents and purposes Lady Lysa was the lady of Riverrun with her elder sister in the Vale.

Elia of course would not impose herself or try to undermine Lady Lysa's authority normally, she would let the younger woman get on with it and offer her aid for her use as she saw fit if the world was working as it ought to, but it was doing anything but that and while she would not wish to judge Lady Lysa, Elia had barely lain eyes on the woman since she had arrived at Riverrun, which was not that long ago to be fair but by all accounts ever since the armies had arrived at Riverrun she had not left her bedchamber.

She had not even come out to bid farewell to her Father and her Uncle, they had gone to her for that while her younger brother, who had made a great scene in the middle of Riverrun's courtyard about not being allowed to come on the adventure as he put it, had made his farewells public as was to be expected.

Elia had overheard some of the maids speaking about how Lysa had been sullen and withdrawn ever since Harrenhal. It made sense of course, with all the insanity that had happened at the massive castle it had been easy to forget that Lady Lysa had lost a betrothal to a very successful match with Jaime Lannister, a second daughter being married to the heir to Casterly Rock was the best possible match that could be made for her, Lord Hoster must have puffed up with pride at the prize.

But then Ser Jaime had knelt in front of the King at the tourney field as the heir to Casterly Rock and had rose as the newest member of the Kingsguard, while the history of the order had never been a subject that she held much interest in but she was fairly certain that Ser Jaime was one of the youngest men to ever wear a white cloak, if not the youngest.

The vows of the Kingsguard made it so that any man who swore them would forsake lands, would take no titles and would never wed. All of which made it impossible to be the heir of Casterly Rock and Elia had to wonder it that was why the King had made Jaime a sworn brother in the first place, to rob Lord Tywin of his golden son and heir.

The man was certainly both mad and cruel enough, Elia should know that better than most. And she had been in that tent when the King had taken even the absence of his former friend as a slight and sent him into a rage that had been terrible to behold. To hurt Lord Tywin might have been more than enough reason to risk provoking his wrath.

And yet all the same Lord Tywin had no other option but to support the King who had stolen his heir from him. The King had both of his eldest children, after all. If he wished for any hope of getting them back then he had to serve the King, or indeed if he simply didn't wish for his children to be burnt alive. Elia did not think she would ever have anything that would resemble sympathy for Tywin Lannister but in that moment she did.

After all, if it was Mors or Torrhen then what would she do? What wouldn't she do to ensure that they were safe and well and to keep them from the Stranger's embrace for as long as she could? She had already threatened one of the greatest lords in Westeros and crossed the seas to get them home safely while both of them still lived beneath her heart, what would she do now that she had held the both of them in her arms and kissed their brows?

It would not do for her to break down crying in front of the steward and so she forced a polite smile on to her face, surely they would start to look more convincing with all the time that she spent performing them, and told the man that she did not wish to add any more to Lady Lysa's burden and in the times of war all of them had to do what they could.

If it was just to do with that he did not wish to put more stress on Lady Lysa or if he felt that he could do with the help he agreed to let her have a look at Riverrun's ledgers which he would have sent up to her room. Elia thanked him and made her way to the chambers that she had and her husband had shared together.

It felt colder and emptier without Ned and she was grateful for the distraction of checking the ledgers of the castle, even if it was not a comforting distraction. Having such a large host around the walls of the castle had meant that the stores had been drained greatly, it was not as bad as it could have been considering they had brought their own food with them but considering that most of the food would be needed for marching the stores of Riverrun had been leaned on heavily.

Thankfully, the draining would be staunched now but there was still a great many people in the castle, not the least of which were the five hundred men of her honor guard that Ned had insisted would remain with the walls of Riverrun even though Elia had tried with all her might to convince him to take the men with him, that he would need them out in the field more than she would need them to protect her inside the walls.

But whatever slim chance she had to convince Ned against it had vanished when Lord Hoster had voiced his agreement for having the men to stay and defend Riverrun, it was certainly understandable of course seeing as he would be ridding of to war and taking most of his men with him as would his brother and so Riverrun would be lightly held but his daughter and his son and heir would be left behind and five hundred men would be sure to keep the castle well defended.

Elia imagined that it was true, of course it would not matter if they ran out of food and starved in the walls before any enemy laid siege on them. She would need to have a word with the castle's cook to make sure that the meals that were prepared were kept as simple as possible so the stores would not be run through so quickly.

If there was any consolation it was the fact that Riverrun was well situated for them to get more food when they needed too, lines could be cast from the castle walls into the the Tumblestone and the Red Fork in order to fish and the fields around the castle were fertile enough and even though it was winter the crops were still growing some what well.

Elia made a few adjustments to the ledgers, she would need to make sure that the steward agreed with her assessment but if she had done her numbers correctly and if they had men fishing every day then they should be able to keep everyone fed and even hold of a siege, if it wasn't a very long one at least.

She had a small supper with the steward and the master-at-arms and Lord Edmure in the lord's solar, it was a humble supper of a thin leak soup and trout wrapped in bacon and served with a lemon sauce with a blackberry tart for sweet but the most important thing was that she had time to speak with both of the man when it came to running the castle.

The Master-At-Arms was more open than the steward had been and he agreed to find men to start fishing on the morrow and Utherydes was far more open to the idea than he had been, perhaps the fact that Lady Lysa had not bothered to attend them and instead had simply taken her supper in her chambers on a tray.

Lord Edmure seemed blissfully ignorant of everything, it couldn't be helped and perhaps it shouldn't be. All he knew of war was the stories he had heard, it was a grand adventure to him. It made her mind drift over to poor Renly back in Storm's End, a crown was a heavy thing for even a grown man to bare and for it to fall on a child, he had his regents at the very least but even so it was a heavy burden.

Once her supper was finished she made her way to Oberyn's room. Two of her honor guards were on the door and by their great height and shaggy beards they were very clearly Umber men and she was fairly sure that they were the sons of one of Lord Rickon's brothers, the one with no eye which had apparently been eaten by a crow.

She wondered if they regretted being left behind to keep them safe when their cousin and father and uncles had ridden off to war and they were simply staying behind to keep them safe. She wondered if they resented her for that. If they did, at least their father had taught them some courtesy and they did not show it and they were both nothing but polite.

They told her that Nymeria had gone inside about an hour ago and she had not come out as of yet, Elia frowned and walked inside the chamber and quickly shut the door behind her and when she turned around her heart leapt into her throat when her eyes finally found Nymeria.

The girl was sitting in the chair next to her Father's bed, tears rolling down her cheeks as she hold his hand in her own. In other hand she was holding a knife so tightly that her knuckles had turned white. Elia gathered her courage and stepped forward and tried to keep her voice as calm as she possible could. "Sweetling, what are you doing hm?"

Nymeria did not even glance away from her Father's face as she spoke. "I hate them auntie, so much. They did this." Her shoulders were shaking and Elia knew that it was not from sadness or from grief, that it was from rage. "I want to kill all of them. The king and the queen and both of the princes and Prince Rhaegar's wife and Lord Tywin and both of his sons, all of them."

Her niece rose from her chair and turned to face her, her grip on her knife was unwavering. "So, let me." She stepped forward and there was something dark in her eyes, something that Elia had seen in Oberyn's eyes a thousand times before and it always spelt disaster and a look that should not be in the eyes of a girl so young. "Give me a horse and let me go to King's Landing."

"Nym-

"No, Aunt Elia, listen to me!" The girl shouted and Elia decided that in that moment the best thing to do would let the girl say her piece. "I could do this, I can do this. Lord Arryn and Lord Tully will be marching down to the capital and the armies defending the city would be too concerned with them, they wouldn't care about a single girl on a horse."

"I can get into the Red Keep, I'll pretend to be a scullery maid. I can cut the King's throat and make an end to this war in a single night. And I can kill Prince Rhaegar and Prince Viserys as well, Lord Tywin and Lord Mace." Nym's eyes shone like black diamonds and a smile spread across her face, so impressed with her own cleverness.

"No." The smile vanished them and was replaced with a heavy frown. "Nymeria know, you do not know what could happen. The armies could think that you are a scout or a spy and if you get to the city, what then? How will you get to the Red Keep? You went there once, do you know it like the back of your hand? Do you think they will take in any Dornish girls as servants now when Dorne is in rebellion against them? It's a foolish plan."

Nymeria stepped close and Elia quickly grabbed her by her wrist and wrestled the knife out of her hands. Nym stumbled back and held her wrist and bent her head and began to sob and Elia felt terrible, she was so afraid of what the girl might do, that she would get herself killed, that she forget that she was barely any more than a girl.

She ran out of the chamber before Elia could try and apologize and Elia glanced down at the knife. Had this really helped? No doubt Nym had a dozen other knives still hidden on her person. "This is your fault, you know?" She told Oberyn as she slumped down into the chair next to his bed and reached out to hold his cold hand.

He did not look any worse, but he did not look any better either. Elia squeezed his hand and prayed that he would squeeze back. But he didn't.

And so, she bent her head and began to weep.

End of Chapter Eighty-Six

Sorry for the wait, life's been kinda crazy and the Prince of Dorne has been talking up a lot of my time as of late.

Anyway, next chapter will be an Obara chapter. I hope that you will look forward to it and I hope that you enjoyed this update and will consider leaving a review, a follow and a favorite.

With love and affection and respect,

DiscordantSymphony