Chapter Text
Helaena VIII
She didn’t want to be here.
It was the only thing she could focus on, the thought that repeated over and over again in her head. I do not want to be here. I do not want to do this. Her chest was tight and a cold snake slivered through her belly, promising humiliation.
Helaena tried to retreat inside the deep, dark hole Jacaerys had torn inside her, to reclaim the numbness. He stood across from her. The emptiness should be close at hand, surely. It was no use; she circled it like water around a drain, but could not plunge in. Her every attempt was frustrated by the eyes upon her. Watching.
A thousand hungry eyes drinking her in, watching for a mistake, a misstep, a malfunction. They wanted nothing more than to slake their thirst for scandal after so long from court, and who better than she? They were already talking about her; she knew. In their mourning clothes, they were a black mass of shadow with jewels at their throats and ears that glistened in the sunlight like Syrax’s teeth had before Helaena burned. She fisted her pale pink skirts in her hands, twisting them about. They’d laced the thing too tight again, and it squeezed her so much that an ache had started in her budding breasts.
Her father cleared his throat, and Helaena knew she was supposed to walk out from the safety of her family, to stand before this crowd and say her pretty words to appease them. She knew it; she did. And still.
Her mother nudged her out, not giving her the choice, and Helaena was adrift. The morning light washed the Great Hall grey. The wind outside brought the smell of sea salt and lashed at the building so fiercely it groaned above them. It reminded her of Dreamfyre’s warm safety beneath her thighs as the ocean lapped at her calves and the ship rocked in the waves before her, tall and proud.
She had done this before, spoken these words to this very man stood at the foot of her father’s dais. There’d been a ship of armed sailors, dragons soaring skyward. Her sister had been labouring alone. It had all fallen upon Helaena, and she had not balked. She’d brought her goodbrother home and thanked the man who had saved her life like a dutiful princess. She searched for that strength again, for her thread to Dreamfyre, the tension and release of it.
She walked to the centre of the dais, the Iron Throne looming at her back. Ser Qarl Correy stood alone, awaiting her thanks as though she had not already given it. She’d tried to make that point to her parents, but apparently the court needed to hear it. Needed her to say something pleasing and grateful in this bloated performance she’d been made to take part in. As though it would bring back their dead or soften the blow of their absence. Or, more like, give them something to talk about. The crowd went deathly quiet.
She looked out at the crowd, the snake in her belly coiling, her breaths coming short, heart hammering in her sore breast. They were all looking at her. Seconds stretched to hours as Helaena, who so oft was pushing unwieldy words down, struggled to find a thing to say. Her new pink dress caught uncomfortably under her arms. She thought of the Myrish mummer boy, his dark eyes peering down at her from the makeshift rafters in the Guildhall. His hands pulling her. His blood staining her knees. The green flames growing hotter and higher.
“Thank you again for saving me, Ser,” she said, voice barely above a whisper as sweat coated her back, sticking the gown to her skin.
Ser Qarl’s smile was the same as the last time. Even his response was the same, as though he’d practised it on Driftmark, honed it until he found the phrasing to please the courtiers behind him. “My pleasure, Princess.” He bowed his head towards her.
There was a smattering of slow clapping. Helaena allowed her eyes to drift over the faces of the courtiers. Were they happy? She said the words, danced the dance expected of her. She could not tell. Matching facial expressions to emotion was difficult. They had to be happy. She’d done what was asked, had she not? The snake lay heavy in her stomach. Gods, why?
They hated her, all of them. They knew she was different and strange and they hated her.
She reached for the emptiness again, as she had tried for days, and found only grief and anger in its place. Her eyes pricked with tears, and she had to tear her gaze from the masses and stumble back to her family. To her mother’s frowning face. It was so unfair. Why did she feel like this? She’d done as asked.
More words were exchanged, but all Helaena could do was stare at her feet as her tummy roiled. She tried to breathe through the pain stabbing in in whilst pushing down tears. Maybe she was going mad. It was the only explanation for her emotions spilling out so violently.
She’d woken after her confrontation with Jacaerys like this. Volatile, irritable, prone to fits of frustrated tears. The numbness had fled her entirely and would not return, no matter how she tried to recapture it. The pain was there, right there, like an inflamed scab.
Mother was moving towards the Father as he descended the throne bit by bit, wincing all the while. Ser Lyonel Strong cut between her and the king, letter clutched in his hands. “We have word from the High Council, My King. I would discuss it with you.”
Viserys, face pale, gave his Hand a weak smile. “Meet me on the parapet above the training yard in a few hours. We shall watch the princes train and discuss it then, Lyonel.” He waved Ser Lyonel off and took Alicent’s proffered arm.
Helaena and her brothers followed behind their parents. Neither Aemond nor Aegon were pleased with her. Aemond had not visited her since the debacle with the pig, even as she tried to prove she was on his side. A gaping wound festered between them. When she asked Alicent if he might join them on their daily walks about the gardens, or in the royal sept her mother only favoured her with a grimace and advised her to give Aemond time.
If Aegon had thought her freakish before, leading Jace into his rooms whilst he slept and stealing his clothes had only made things worse. His japes increased in frequency and cruelty. She tried to avoid him, but Mother said if she was well enough to sneak out and ride dragons, she was well enough to attend meals with her kin.
They walked out of the Great Hall behind the Iron Throne, wind lifting the hair clinging haphazardly to the king’s scalp in stringy patches and sending them swirling about the Old King’s crown. No one spoke to one another. They made for a dour procession towards Maegor’s Holdfast.
The air did Helaena good, made her feel less trapped and tightly wound. She counted the strides it took to make it across the small training yard at the back of the Great Hall. Fifty. Her heartbeat slowed with each step. The howling of the gale was a welcome distraction from her thoughts. She let her eyes wander, taking in the ladies holding their skirts down and the lords trying to keep hats atop their heads as a stray gust tried to snatch them away. They weren’t watching her anymore; she was watching them.
Her sister and her family did not follow them. It was good, Helaena told herself. Less chance of Jace trying to talk to her or get her attention. She’d done a very good job of avoiding him. Walking the other way when their paths almost crossed during her walks with Mother, pushing her wardrobe in front of the tunnel entrance in her rooms, and staring at her plate all throughout the dinner they’d all shared for Jace’s name day. That one had felt mean, but he’d been lavished with toasts and praise throughout. He did not need her to add to the chorus of well-wishers. With his treatment of her brother, he’d made it clear he did not value her at all.
Her brothers split off to get ready for their swordplay lesson with Ser Criston later, but Helaena was sick of her rooms. She followed her parents as they made their way to the king’s chambers. The model of the Freehold dominated her father’s bedroom, white and gleaming. Viserys oft mused on painting it, but he’d been saying such things since she was a babe, and the model had only sprawled onto more tables. Unpainted.
Large tomes littered the edge of the tables, opened on seemingly random pages. Helaena had tried reading a few, but found them exceedingly dull. Full of architecture and unfamiliar words that she struggled to translate. Daeron had sent her a copy of Shrubbery, Being a History on the Flora of the Valyrian Freehold by Maester Mikkellion from the Citadel as a congratulations for claiming a dragon. It was sweet, and he’d obviously been aided by their grandsire, Ser Otto, who’d put a little note about the pages where Jaehaelor mentions insects found in the Freehold.
“Firefly, fire lights. Fire lights, firefly,” she whispered, eyes glazing over.
“Helaena, are you listening?” Alicent asked.
She looked over to where her mother was tucking a blanket around Viserys’ legs. A small fire lit the hearth, highlighting the red of Alicent’s curls. “The wine, Helaena,” Alicent repeated.
Helaena went to the side table and filled a cup with hippocras, going to her father and handing it to him. He took it with a whispered thanks, sipping at it as he leaned his elbow on the armrest. He smelt of sharp medicinal herbs and the cloying sweetness of rot buried beneath. Alicent was saying something about the Hand and upcoming Small Council, but Helaena wasn’t following along. Neither, she thought, was Viserys.
“Helaena!” Alicent snapped, frowning at her.
“Yes?” Helaena replied, knowing she’d missed something again. It wasn’t her fault, she had a stitch in her stomach from walking and it was distracting her.
Alicent closed her eyes briefly. “Your father and I were saying how well you did today, Sweetling. You need to say a bit more next time, but that was an excellent start. Don’t you agree, My Love?”
Viserys hummed absently. Helaena did not want to dissect her performance at court with anybody, least of all her parents.
“Might I return to my rooms, Mother?”
Alicent nodded, before going back to talking at Viserys about politics that went right over Helaena’s head. Ser Willis Fell walked her back to her chambers. They did not talk, but when Helaena was about to head inside she paused.
“I am sorry for your brother’s loss, Ser.”
The Kingsguard knight blinked, straightened to his full height, and gave her a little bow. “Thank you, Princess. He is with the gods now.”
“I pray he finds peace.” She prayed every night before bed like Septa Marlow had taught her, she would add the late Lord Fell to her prayers tonight.
Ser Willis nodded, jaw tensing and untensing. “I would appreciate that greatly.”
He closed the door behind her, leaving her to her embroidery with Septa Marlow.
It was when she and her brothers and mother took lunch together that she learnt what happened in the training yard.
“He has been stripped of his command in the City Watch,” Alicent said, tearing at a piece of crusty bread with small, precise movements.
“Is Ser Criston well?” Helaena asked. The image of him bleeding on his back in the yard brought on such an intense pang of distress it almost knocked the breath from her.
“The Grand Maester says his nose is broken, but beyond that he is in perfect health,” Alicent said. “Your swordplay lessons might be cancelled for a few days, that is all.” This she addressed to Helaena’s brothers.
Aegon should have been thrilled, but he just shrugged and took another gulp of wine from his goblet. Aemond narrowed his eyes at the older boy, turning to their mother and launching into a story from the lesson.
“He had us try to touch him today, Aegon and I. We couldn’t even get close, and he had one hand behind his back!” Aemond’s voice was awed, eyes wide. She understood, Helaena had seen Ser Criston fight on the yard before. It was a sight to behold, almost beautiful in his quick, brutal movements.
Alicent grasped his hand. “You shall be as fearsome as he one day. I know it.” She said it with such intensity, as though she could bring it into being by word alone.
Helaena looked at Aemond. She could see it too, she supposed. Her brother was as dedicated to his study of the blade as he was to dragons. He’d once spent hours before a mirror trying to perfect a trick with a butter knife. He smiled and nodded at their mother, dipping his own bread in a bowel of pea soup.
She forced herself to eat, despite the way it sickened her stomach. She needed to regain the weight she’d lost. It was just bread and a thin bit of cheese on top. She had a list of things she could eat, usually, and this was one of them. It was sour in her mouth today, like the milk had spoiled.
If she wanted to ride Dreamfyre again, she needed food. She’d been troubled by growing pains the last few days, and that would only take off more weight. She was naturally plump before the fire and Helaena was irritated at the time it was taking her body to return to normal. It seemed to always be changing, growing, doing things she hadn’t asked of it.
“What will happen to Strong now? He grabbed at me, Mother,” Aegon said suddenly over the rim of his goblet.
Alicent exhaled. “Ser Harwin is still the son of your father’s Hand, as well as your sister’s sworn shield and-” Her eyes flicked over toward Helaena and pursed her lips. She brushed some crumbs from the table. “I doubt there will be much more done, Aegon.”
“He assaulted Ser Criston,” Aemond said, brow furrowed. “A knight of the Kingsguard. He is only getting away with because he’s-“ Alicent cleared her throat, and Aemond scowled at his soup.
“Rhaenyra’s whore?” Aegon finished, elongating the ‘o’ in ‘whore’ into his cup so it echoed a little.
Aemond snickered, rubbing his nose. Helaena looked to their mother, but Alicent only pulled an odd face. “Mind your manners at the table, please.”
Helaena knelt at the side of her bed, knees cushioned by the thick woven rug below her. She clasped her hands in prayer and dipped her head.
“’The Father’s face is stern and strong,
He sits and judges right from wrong.
He weighs our lives, the short and long,
And loves the little children.’”
The lullaby was once favoured by her mother, and featured in her earliest memories. Back when she’d believed the song would ward off her frightening dreams and see her safely to morning. Now she knew better, but the lullaby stuck as her nightly prayer.
She prayed for the soul of Ser Willis’s brother, asking the Father to judge him and the Mother to show him mercy. She realised she did not know Lord Fell’s name, and wondered if it counted still. Helaena hoped so.
Then she moved on to Ser Criston, asking the Warrior to restore his strength, and the Smith to help Grand Maester Orwyle treat him and his injuries. She remembered how he’d lain his cloak on the ground so her feet might dry as he found her new boots. Why Ser Harwin hit him, she was unsure. The knight had been intimidating when they’d met in the tunnels, but he’d seemed well-intentioned and kind, especially the way he’d spoken to Jacaerys.
Though what did she know? She had clearly misjudged the man’s son.
As she rose to her feet, Helaena hesitated. Getting down again, she added a small, traitorous prayer for Ser Harwin and Ser Lyonel, so their journey to Harrenhal might be swiftly guided by the Crone’s shining lamp. As much as she misliked that he’d broken Ser Criston’s nose, he had been sweet to her.
Her sleep was troubled by an old nightmare made new. No longer tattered blue silk, Dreamfyre bore her aloft through the skies. There was panic and grief and anger thrumming through her bones as she clung to her dragon’s back. She was looking for something, half mad with want and regret. She tried to say something, to give Dreamfyre an order, but when she opened her mouth, she found her tongue was gone. Helaena screamed.
As she climbed higher and higher into the wind and rain tearing at her clothes, she saw images in flashes of lightning. A castle chiselled into a cliff, a small island, seas of blood whose waves rose high as mountains, snow-capped peaks, bones and skulls picked clean sticking up from the earth, and finally a tall tower shining with a thousand small lights dancing in the darkness.
Dreamfyre flapped towards it, calling in desperation through the downpour, high and woeful. The wind was too strong, stripping her wings with each icy gust. With a last, gut-wrenching screech into the storm, dragon and rider went screaming downwards in a tangle of leather and limbs.
Helaena clung to Dreamfyre with all her might, shrieking until her throat burned as they spun down and down. Thunder cracked, lightning illuminating the sky again. The single tower became five reaching like candles into the heavens as Dreamfyre and Helaena fell between them, spinning wildly.
Little pinpricks of light wove around the towers, flitting here and there as they grew larger and larger. Helaena realised the towers were burning, the yellow and orange turning a sickly green as wildfire ringed her.
And she was on her knees, blood staining her dress as a wall of green flame surrounded her. It was unbearably hot, searing her skin as the flames fanned closer. There was no mummer’s boy, no Aemond either, with his half-faced malice.
On the ground, bare and glassy eyed, was her brother Aegon. He laid and dressed like he had been on the bed when she and Jace had found him in his rooms passed out from drink. Red flowed from between his legs, mingling with her own as it soaked her dress. Helaena heaved, looking away and trying to back from the corpse.
There was more blood as well, flowing towards her, around her, soaking into her, becoming part of her in a rank pool. She turned around, looking behind her, and saw countless men adorned in the raiment of kings. They were bleeding, sanguine flowing from their feet towards her as they were lit by the green fire around them. A few held aloft burning swords of pale fire. Some regarded her with dead, ghostly eyes of jade, and onyx, and amethyst. Hundreds of men with purple eyes watched, each lesser than the last. The ones closest held no shining swords. She knew them, and they knew her.
She could not talk for she had no tongue. Could not even scream. Rising to her feet, she faced these spectres with her burning skin and bloody dress, tears running down her cheeks like boiling streams. As one, the men pointed, some with their swords of pale light, most with just their fingers. She turned back and saw…
Nothing. No Aegon, no blood, nothing. Only a wall of green flame that raced to engulf her.
Helaena gasped awake, clutching at her neck, her face. Her body ached, and she was still so tired, as though she had not slept at all. Pre-dawn was filtering through her curtains, and her sobs echoed off the walls of her bedchamber.
Her thighs felt sticky. When she brought her hand from under the blankets, she saw they were sticky too. And stained scarlet. She sobbed harder, knowing she was dying and there was nothing to be done to stop it.
She curled into a shaking ball and waited for death to take her. Instead, the door to her room banged open, and Septa Marlow was looking down at her. She was clothed in only her roughspun nightgown, her head-covering forgotten in her rush to reach Helaena.
“What is wrong, Child?” she croaked, peering at Helaena. “Have you had a nightmare?”
Helaena gave no response, only holding up her bloody hands as she cried big, gulping tears. The old woman frowned for a moment, taking her by the wrists and flipping over her hands. She tried to pull away, but the Septa was deceptively strong. She pulled back the sheets with a yank, exposing the mess of Helaena’s nightdress and bedding. Patches of dark wine and bright ruby stained the pale fabrics. Helaena could only stare in horror at the mess.
“It is your moon’s blood, Princess. Nothing more.” The septa said it with all the concern of a maester regarding a scratch.
Helaena had heard those words before, she was sure. Where she could not say, mayhaps Talya? She could not think straight. Her chest still heaved with weeping as her shoulders shook. She stared dumbly at her septa as the old woman looked between her and the gory scene on the bed.
“This is your first flowering?” Marlow asked, voice still creaky from sleep. Helaena was baffled. She’d heard this term before too, but she was hardly a budding flower. There was sticky blood running down her legs, coating her skin. She wanted it off. “It can be frightening if you’re unprepared. Your mother did not warn you; I take it.” Septa Marlow shook her head. “They must do things differently in the Eyrie.”
Helaena sniffled. Marlow was confused again and making little sense. “I don’t understand,” Helaena croaked, holding out her hands again. “I’m bleeding.”
“And you shall bleed again. I can promise you. You are a maiden now.”
She was already a maiden. People called her a maiden all the time. She shook her head. Marlow only tutted. “I will call for a bath and the queen. She can better explain, I am sure.”
Servants filled Helaena’s bath as she sat, bleeding onto her featherbed, trying to dry her tears without smearing blood on her face. They said nothing, but whispered amongst themselves. They thought her mad, too. She knew she should get up and try to wash her hands in the washbasin, but she was frozen, looking at the mess on her legs and underneath her, and thinking of her dream.
The maids knew better than to lead her to the bath or help her undress and wash. Helaena had bitten the last girl to make such an attempt. She climbed over the lip of the tub, sinking into the scalding hot water and watching with fascination as it turned a pale pink, her nightgown billowing around her in the water.
Her mother came into the room, dressed for the day in a rich green gown. Her hair was piled under a bejewelled hairnet, strands framing her concerned face. She came close, pulling over a seldom used stool to sit by the tub, facing Helaena.
“I heard the news.” Alicent’s voice was soft. “I’m sorry it frightened you, Sweetling. It gave me quite the shock the first time, too, I promise.”
“I’m not going to die?” Helaena croaked.
“Oh, my sweet child! No, this is perfectly natural for a girl your age.” With no concern for the blood clouding the water or staining the nightgown, Helaena’s mother reached out to touch her damp shoulder. “It is a good thing. It means you are fit to marry and bear children of your own.”
Helaena balked. She had scarcely thought of marriage or children beyond it being some vague future prospect—something on the distant horizon. It was her duty to wed and produce children; she understood that, but she was only two-and-ten. Her sister had been ten-and-eight at her wedding to Ser Laenor. The idea of a husband or child disturbed her; some strange man in her bed, a babe swelling her belly. She was fit for neither.
Alicent gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze, and Helaena fought not to shrug her off as discomfort shivered down her spine and her neck went stiff. “I know the idea is a daunting one, it was for me when I was set to marry your father.” Her lips rose in an almost imperceptible smile. “But then I had you and your brothers, and it was all worth it. There is no greater agony than childbirth, and no greater ecstasy than when you first hold your child. It is what the gods crafted women for, our sacred duty.”
Steam coiled up from the pink water of her bath, twisting upwards like smoke, like the towers from her dream. When she shut her eyelids, still puffy from tears, the kings were there, pointing their accusing fingers silently behind her. Though the heat had eased it, her stomach still felt as though someone was dragging a dull knife along her insides. The pain did not feel sacred.
“Will the… bleeding ever stop?”
Alicent let out a small huff of laughter. “Yes, after a few days. And then it will start again in a moon’s turn, give or take. Some women are less regular than others, but commonly you will only miss it when your womb quickens with child.”
Helaena shuddered; she did not want her womb to quicken with anything. It sounded unbearable.
“And now that we are speaking of such things…” Alicent wet her lips. “As you have flowered, you can wed.” Helaena recoiled, looking at her mother incredulously. “And it would not have to be some stranger,” Alicent said, raising her hands as though she were calming a startled horse. “You would not even have to leave King’s Landing. You could stay with your family.”
“Who?” Despite everything, despite knowing Helaena would need to do her duty, some part of her had imagined she might have a say in her future. The bathwater was growing suddenly chill, the tub’s edge digging into her back through the cotton.
“Aegon.” The words were like a blow to the chest.
“Aegon does not like me.”.
“You are siblings, possessing a closeness most husbands and wives take years to cultivate. Your brother loves you dearly, regardless of any childish squabbles.” Alicent sounded very convincing, so long as one had never met Aegon Targaryen.
“I do not want to marry him,” Helaena said, grabbing her knees to her chest for comfort.
“You are a woman now, no longer a child. Sometimes being a woman is not about doing only what we wish, only when we wish it.” Alicent swallowed, leaning closer. “Your father will not live forever,” she whispered. “And when he dies, Aegon will ascend the Iron Throne after him with you at his side, as the Conqueror and Old King did. As is Targaryen tradition. You will be a queen, Helaena. Like me.”
As though it were something good. Helaena’s eyes watered. Some part of her had always known what her mother intended with Aegon, even if he pretended not to. Alicent desired her son upon his namesake’s throne, not Rhaenyra. Helaena had never added herself to those plans, though. Never pictured herself as his wife and queen.
She knew, quite certainly, that she did not want to wed her brother. That she did not want to be like her mother. It seemed an isolated, fearful life. The queen saw danger lurking around every corner, fear stalking each wakeful moment. It was scarred into her healing nail beds and the dark semi-circles beneath her eyes. There was no vision needed to tell her the future if she became queen. It sat before her, gripping the lip of the bath.
“I do not want to be queen.” The words were out before she could stop them, tumbling clumsily out into the world. She hugged her knees closer, fighting the urge to hide her face in them.
For a moment, stretching between them for what seemed a lifetime, there was nothing but the drip of water falling from her hair into the bath, the crackle of the fire, and the beginnings of birdsong in the dawn air outside. Alicent’s face was indecipherable, and Helaena could only watch as she sat straight on the stool, retreating from the tub, from Helaena. She wondered if she’d broken something not easily repaired.
“We all must sacrifice for the good of the family, the house, the kingdom.” Alicent had a far away look in her eye as she stared out the window. “It does not matter what we want.”
Getting to her feet, the queen adjusted her sleeves at the cuffs. “You shall see, one day, that all I do is for you and your brothers.” She turned without a look in Helaena’s direction, marching to the door with her purposeful stride.
The door clicked shut behind Alicent, and Helaena was alone, staring at her distorted reflection in the water’s surface. More droplets plopped into the bath, sending tiny ripples rushing to touch the copper sides and parts of her nightdress peeking from the water before rebounding towards her again. She watched the ripples as the water grew tepid and the tide of hurt rose against the wall she tried to build around it.
A drop slipped between her lips, tasting of salt. She had not spent all her tears yet. The dam broke, and she began to weep. Bitter cries that had her struggling to breathe with how forcefully she expelled them.
“Princess?” Talya’s voice called from her solar. “Are you well?”
Helaena could make no response but the wail she muffled into her soaked skirts covering bet knees, biting into the cotton. The faint metallic tang of her own blood filled Helaena’s mouth and she only cried harder. Her fingernails bit so hard into her legs she feared she had pierced the skin.
“I’m coming in, Princess.”
“I want to be left alone.” Her voice was ragged and choked.
The door opened regardless. It seemed not even the servants could respect Helaena's wants-and they were paid to do so. The realisation turned her grief to blinding rage, spiking through her like a brand searing into her flesh.
She wrenched herself to her feet, water cascading into the bathwater kissing her calves.
“I said I want to be left alone!” she cried, bending to grab the stool Alicent had vacated and hurling it in Talya ‘s direction.
Spry Talya jumped back into the solar with a yelp as the stool bounced and clattered over carpet and stone in her general direction. Helaena’s chest rose and fell in shaky breaths as she watched the wood splinter and crack before rolling to a stop.
“Leave me be!” Helaena screamed after Talya as the woman pulled the door closed behind her.
Helaena gripped the edge of the tub, leaning half out as she bent over the side. Talya’s footsteps retreated and Helaena heard another door open and close. Her shoulders shook with despondency and rage in equal measure.
She climbed from the tub, legs shaking, and fell to her knees, the morning air chilling her immediately. Clasping her hands together she bowed her head.
Between gasping sobs she began her litany. “Please, please, please. I do not want to be Aegon’s wife, I do not want to be his queen. Please, please, please.” On and on she prayed aloud, her skin prickling with gooseflesh, a puddle of pinkish water spreading below her.
The dream, the towers, the fire, the men with her eyes and her hair, Aegon still at her feet, the fire. It could not be true, it could not be. Below it all, beneath the new dreams grasping for her attention, lay the old.
Pick. The word rang like the city bells in her mind. Pick, pick, pickpickpickpickpickpick. The shadows chasing her through tight tunnels. The fall.
She sank lower and lower, voice growing strained and jagged. Her refrain became punctured with words not of her making.
“Fire lights, firefly. Sun veils half the moon. I don’t want to be his wife, I don’t want to be his queen. Please. Please. Please.”
The hole was yawning wide for Helaena once more, welcoming her shivering form into its cold embrace. Her ears rang, and everything was starting to drift away. She drank greedily from its cup, allowing the numbness to spread through her again.
“I don’t want to be his queen. Please.”
The emptiness engulfed her. There was that distant sensation once again, as though she were puppeting some other body. Some other girl.
The girl rose slowly to her feet, blood trailing down her leg. The girl went to the wardrobe and pushed it back, bare feet warmed on the rugs beneath them. She entered the tunnels, guided by touch and recollection alone. She walked through the pit of spikes unharmed.
She stood in the hungry room, lit clearly in morning light, and saw the grooves in the floor sand had not covered. The discarded training equipment. The black broken marble slab moved to the corner. Silence like a bated breath. The scent of soil and root in the air. High ceilings and black stone held aloft by dark columns. The weirwood above. Its roots all around. The hunger.
The girl was still whispering her recitation as she curled into a ball below the grate high above. As she lay her head down on the thinning layer of sand and heard the horrible thrum beneath the floor. As her moon’s blood soaked into the sand, disappearing completely.
“I don’t want to be queen.”