Chapter 10: Chapter 10-Times to Come!
Chapter 10
Starfall was somber. The castle, which had once been burnt by the dragons, was somber at the death of a Dragonborn. Or was it just her, she thought as she sat in her room atop the Eastern Tower along the raging shores of Torrentine. Its raging waves had dulled as well since that day, much like her world.
Many a moon had passed since that fateful day, and she had left the capital before it happened as per his wishes. After hearing the rumors about the events which had occurred after her departure, she could understand why he had made her promise to leave the capital, for she wasn't sure that she would have been able to hold herself back from ending her own life if she had heard the screams which now haunted her brothers' sleep.
He had come once a moon after the fight, riding to the place of his birth, and she had seen the effect it all had taken on him. The once pride of Starfall had withered. His eyes had sunken in and had lost the glint she had seen in them since their birth. They had not met, for despite her knowing better, despite Daemon not blaming him. Ashara couldn't bring herself to sit face-to-face with him. And then he had departed, just as soon, yet without his greatest treasure. He had left Dawn back home, the sword for which he had spent hours and hours in the yard every day since the day he could hold a tourney blade in his hand, his greatest treasure abandoned.
They weren't the only ones affected, though. The Queen had supposedly tried to kill herself, her attempt unsuccessful, and since then, she had been locked in her room by the 'Mad King.' King Aerys's new epithet was quite accurate for the man, and despite his actions, he remained surrounded by lickspittles and conniving lords who either wanted to further themselves or feared that they would be the ones to burn next.
The burnings had become common as well. The King's preference for burning criminals with wildfire had won him little respect and favour yet enough fear to keep the lords in tow. But for how long, she wondered. 'Fear is a useful but fickle tool,' he would often say when she would object to his kindness, as he would mingle and integrate himself with the lords and common folk alike. Yet he was gone now, and only the time they had spent together remained.
And oh so little it was.
Rumors had already sprung up around her, that she carried his child, that she was scorned by him, and many other stories that an idle mind could drum up. And a part of her wished that one of them had been the truth, that she had with herself a memento of his, yet alas it was too late.
A small whisper often erupted in her heart whenever she looked out the giant balcony into the waters ahead. All it would take was a step. One step, and she could end it all. Yet she couldn't. A part of her willed her to continue, willed her enough not to take that ste...
"AGHH!AGHHH!" she began to cough up suddenly as the fire in her room began to dwindle, an ominous presence filled her room as pain ripped through her. Pain enough to make her vision blur.
Her breath hitched as a vision erupted in her head, of eyes. Of his eyes, that amethyst purple she had often found herself getting lost into, surrounded by fire as she fell off the chair and onto the ground, gasping for air as pain tore up her insides.
'Suffer! Suffer!' the words began to repeat inside her head, and she was in so much pain that she didn't hear the door to her room open, and the last thing she saw were another pair of eyes, eyes amethyst in colour, though this one similar to her own as little Allyria's screams filled her ears.
"HELP!!! HELP!"
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STANNIS BARATHEON
Strom's End, the seat of House Baratheon, the seventh and the last castle built by Durran Godsgrief, had never fallen to storm or siege to this day. The castle and its men are said to have inherited his own sense of defiance and hubris to go against the Storm Gods and had stood over thousands of years of history.
Yet Stannis often wondered if that history would be marred soon as another hunger pang tore through his gut. Robert's call to arms against the Mad King had come as a surprise to many, and his liege lord and brother had not taken the time to prepare the keep for the consequences of his actions. The castle stores had only been half full, and even from that, Robert had seen fit take much for his armies when he had left him here, along with a single order.
'Hold the castle. At all cost!'
And so Stannis had done his duty and had rationed the food as best as he could. Yet the siege had come just as quickly, giving him no time to fill up his stores, and then had come the hunger. Hunger, as his brother, met up with the Vale lord and Northern lords in the Riverlands. Hunger as he fought battle after battle and defeated the host led by Jon Connington. Hunger as he would smash Rhaegar Targaryen's chest at the Trident.
The horses had been eaten moons ago, and things had come to the point that many now killed and ate their dogs. The castle stores were long gone even as the Reach lords feasted outside their walls, celebrating as men, women, and children were buried daily as they succumbed to their hunger.
Yet Stannis held, and the castle stood with him, owing it much to a scummy little pirate that sailed through the Redwyne ships at night and sold them onions and barely edible salted fish for its weight in Gold.
As he heard the Maester speak, old Cressen had lost much of his weight; he was now skin and bones, yet the old man still did his duty, much like him.
"That wretched smuggler was captured," he questioned, fear and worry filling a nook of his heart before he quashed it once more.
"Yes, my lord. Last night, I saw the Redwyne ships capture his little galley and arrest the man. I am afraid that things will only get worse from now on without the man's supplies," Cressen finished.
After Robert had smashed Rhaegar and his armies at the Trident, he had hoped the siege would end as the pillar of Targaryen force crumbled under his brothers' might. It was believed that few in the Targaryen army fought for the Mad King who had burnt his own son. No, they fought for Rhaegar, the Prince. Yet with him gone, the war would have essentially ended.
That was the hope until a few days after word of the battle at the Trident spread, a missive arrived from Kingslanding, bearing the seal of the three-headed dragon and a proclamation that he found hard to believe.
"This, along with the movements in the Reach armies outside the walls, tell me that the war is not quite as over as we thought it out to be," Cressen added, and he could read the same.
"So, it was true. Prince Daemon has somehow managed to return from the dead," he said, and Cressen nodded.
"It seems so, and Lord Mace has been removed from the head of the army and replaced by Lord Randall Tarly. I believe this could mean only a single thing," Cressen added.
"That they plan to bring down the castle." Mace Tyrell was a fool. He had wasted a rather substantial opportunity to land a massive blow to his brother's hosts when he had decided against pursuing them to lay siege to Storm's End.
Yet the same could not be said of Randall Tarly; the man was gruff and rumored to be an astute military commander and had served as a knight in the Blackfyre rebellion a decade ago.
"It's not just the "It's not just the Reach's armies, my lord. I have received word from lords of the marshes that a host from Dorne marches towards the capital as we speak, and that Griffin Roost raises another new host as well," and Stannis ground his teeth at that.
This was bad. The guards had gone hungry for days, much like himself, as they tried to provide food for the children and the women, yet without the smuggler's lifeline, they were done. They had nothing.
Yet he would hold the castle as he had been ordered to. And then, before he could utter a word, a servant rushed into the room, his skin sunken in, much like Cressen's. Stannis heard the bells at the Drum Tower begin to ring, and he realized just what had happened.
"My lord. They're attacking!" the servant huffed out, and Stannis felt his hair rise up at those words as he pushed himself up with all his remaining might, steeling the grimace that was to break out.
He could not falter. He must stand strong for the people, for his Renly, for Storm's End.
"Gather the men! We shall not let them enter this castle. Storm's End has stood tall for thousands of years, and it shall do for another hundred!" and with his words, the servant gave him a bow.
"As you command, my lord." And with that, he was gone as Stannis swallowed his own spit and began to walk out of the Maester crookery, steel in his veins as he went out to defend his castle as per his duty.
And with every step, a whisper lingered on.
'Could this be the day?'
'How long could they hold?'
0000
ELIA MARTELL
The city prepared for war, yet these preparations were much different than the bedlam that it had been under Mad King. Men poured into the city from various gates and the docks. Many of them were from the Crown lands, though quite a few turned up from across the Narrow Sea. Two thousand, he had told her, were his own, all of them wore armor similar to the men who guarded the Red Keep, yet that was not the whole number. The two thousand were only the men he had under his direct command. These others came as they heard of his troubles and came to lend aid to their liberator.
She had heard little of the ongoings of the Slavers' Bay except for the Great rebellion of Meereen, where three of the great families slaving families had been burnt in their pyramids by the infamous freedmen, who even to this day carried on with their efforts to squash out the abjuration of slavery from their city.
And then there was another thing, one more event this infamous liberator was credited with. Though what she knew was much more rumor than substance, and she, for some reason, found herself tongue-tied whenever she thought to bring it up.
By now, fifteen thousand men had been assembled. Lesser than the Baratheon host of about thirty thousand. But with the ten thousand Dornishmen at his call, along with the Lannister army yet to declare for any side. They had enough numbers. Just barely, but still.
And this time, they were being led by Daemon Targaryen—not by Rhaegar and his prophecies, but by Daemon. Daemon the Burnt, as he was being coined. One of his many monikers, along with Daemon the Destroyer and much more, as the bards in the city, regaled his tale of demolishing the five thousand Lannister men that marched on this city.
"It has arrived," he said as he passed her missive, which he had just been reading. They were in his solar; she would often find herself here over various matters, for she was one of the few people he could trust in this wretched city.
Yet despite being gone for years, she often found herself surprised by just how well informed he was of the happenings of the continent.
She took the missive and saw that it was from Lord Tywin, and as he had said, it was an offer of parley.
It was a simple enough offer, though she didn't know how to feel about it.
"So, you were right. The man has called you for a parley. Don't you think it's a bit unassuming? After all, he was the very man who tried to sack this city a few days ago with five thousand men," she said; for a thousand reasons, she didn't find it easy to trust a man like Tywin Lannister.
As always, Daemon's face was hidden by the mask, yet unlike her, he seemed rather at ease about this whole thing.
"The five thousand men were just a test, and I believe I have sent the man an appropriate answer..."
"And what answer was that?" she asked.
"That I am not my father, nor my brother, yet I am not as unlike them as one may come to believe," he said sharply.
"I have my father's cruelty yet can temper it with Rhaegar's patient nature. I hold his son, who lives only because of that specific nature. Add to that the fact that unlike Robert, I can offer him a rather exhorbant prize for his support. I knew this would happen," he said, and there was little need to speak of what price that was.
Lord Lannister's greatest wish, a wish upon which she had trampled on. A Royal Match. And this time, the match would be to a King. Yet what would his reply be to such an offer, for she knew that such an offer would be tempting? She had seen Cersei Lannister, and the golden-haired girl, who was rather fond of her brother's swords in her youth, had grown up into a woman worthy of her title of the Jewel of the West.
Yet there was also the question of Ashara, and from what she had observed, her purple-eyed friend still held his heart even after all these years, maybe just as she held his.
Or perhaps he could grant the man's other request to have his heir returned. Everyone knew that the Lion lord wished to have his favored son as his hei and have him removed from the order of the Kingsguard. He had even offered the Mad King a mountain of Gold to let Jamie go, yet the man had ignored the offer.
Yet she did not have the courage to ask him of his choice, hesitant over learning his answer she looked out the window.
The Sun was up and lit up his solar, littered with maps, missives, and some blood stains. A glass of wine sat beside him, yet she had yet to see his face.
"And what of the Stark girl?" she suddenly recalled angrily, the symbol of her shame. It was for a moment, but she saw him stiffen.
"Why don't you just hand her back and parley with Robert and the other rebelling lords? That would end this whole war," she offered, but he didn't answer at first.
"I cannot do that, for firstly, I do not believe that they would accept such an offer even if I were to make it, but additionally, she is not in a state to be handed back quite yet," and her words puzzled her as she frowned trying to make sense of them.
"Stat..." but she stopped as her heart stilled, and her head snapped up, alarmed and enraged as she guessed.
"She is with child!" she declared, and no refusal came from him as he continued in a dull voice.
"She is. Lyanna Stark carries Rhaegar's legitimate child," and the words shook her once more as the extent of her husband's betrayal dawned on her.
"He annulled our marriage," she eked out, and Daemon shook his head.
"I believe not, for the Targaryens are not bound by the Seven like the rest of the realm. We are the exception," he pointed out towards the Targaryen exceptionalism, which was the same point that allowed them to marry brother to sister.
Yet she was in a trance, enraged and furious. At Rhaegar, at everyone. Even at Daemon.
"You knew!" she said through gritted teeth as she glared at him.
"You knew all along!" she finished with a gasp, and he did not deny it. He hadn't told her. But why, and then it clicked together. He had needed the Dornish men, the army. The same army which now marched towards the Westerlands at her effort.
He had used her! And she had thought him to be different.
She pushed herself out of her seat and was about to walk away in disgust and betrayal.
"Elia! Stop! Just listen to me!" he shouted as he sprang up from his own chair and followed behind her.
"Why!"
"Because whatever folly my brother committed in his last months will not have any bearing on your and your children's station. I promise you that," he said, and she wished to believe him as she had. But how could she?
"And what of that Stark girl? What of the child she carries in her womb," she questioned as she shouted at him.
"He will have no claim on the Iron Throne. Aegon, your son, is my heir and shall remain so, just as you shall remain a Royal Princess. The only reason I didn't tell it to you earlier was because I had feared you would react as such," he said, and she grit her teeth as she looked him in the eye
"Give me your word," she demanded after a second of thought. And he nodded.
"You have it. I will handle this," he assured her, and as much as she wished to distrust him as she had come to Rhaegar and Aerys, she could not. Angry as she may, she knew that their fates were intertwined now, that despite her anger and fury, they were on the same side.
"And what will happen to Aegon when you have a child of your own?" she questioned, and his eyes narrowed.
"Your children have nothing to fear from me, Elia. And we shall deal with that after we have survived this whole ordeal of my family's making," he said a bit heatedly, reaping the words he had told her in their first meeting, and despite her anger, she let him lead her back to her chair, as she settled down on the one beside it.
"I know it may feel like I have used you, but you must understand that this is a war, a war which we were losing rather badly, and I had to use all means at my disposal to turn the tides," he offered, and she nodded reluctantly.
"I understand," she said, and he nodded. There was silence as she took a sip of the Dornish red he had poured for her before she questioned.
"How do you plan to deal with Lord Tywin then?" she questioned.
"I have two armies ready to invade his lands, and then there is Jamie, his prized son. I am just going to educate him about the reality of his situation and trust the man's pragmatism to deal with the rest," he replied.
And while that may have been enough for any man, Tywin Lannister was not just any man. He had served as Aerys's hand for nearly two decades, and the man had nerves of steel.
"Lord Tywin is a man I would hardly ever trust. Just be careful around him," she said, and Daemon nodded.
"I will be."
Both of them sat in silence again, at least as much silence one could find with fifteen thousand men drilling loudly a few yards away from them. That was until a servant knocked on the door.
"Come in," Daemon said, and a guard entered the solar and, with a bow, conveyed the message.
"Your grace, princess, a ship has just docked into the ports. It's Queen Rhaella, she has returned."
With that, the solar was emptied once more, and half a map remained open on the table. It was a map of the continent, yet the borders were different. Much different.
A sign of the times to come.
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