18. Undercurrents

259 AC, King’s Landing

The Young Princess 

The weather remained mercurial, the dark clouds choked the skies each day, sometimes spiced with flashes of thunder and a torrent of rain. The year grew to its zenith, yet the expected heat wave had yet to arrive. The new Grand Maester claimed the days were starting to shorten and that fall would soon arrive.

Her grandsire’s nameday was fast approaching, and with it, her departure for Sunspear as Rhaella fell into restless indecision. 

Two choices lay before her, and upon pondering, each was fraught with its own peril. Obey her family’s arrangements and venture into the unknown of Dorne, or defy them again and find a way to remain in King’s Landing. Defying the royal family a second time would be harder than the first, unless she found an ample reason. 

Escape… was also an option, though no less dangerous than the rest. It would be easy enough to slip to the docks through the secret passageways, hire a barge to sail up the Blackwater Rush, and make her way to the Gods Eye. In truth, that was the last resort, and Rhaella was not that desperate just yet. Or she could obey this time, leaving the only home she had known behind. Dorne was a land of a near-endless desert and scorching sun, and its people were all hot-tempered and of questionable morals. 

Even her safety there would not be guaranteed, not truly. A fostering for ladies of noble birth usually ended up in a marital arrangement. It was a precursor to a betrothal at best, and princesses were no different. 

“It’s for your own good,” her grandmother said one evening. “Dorne is far away from the troubles of the Iron Throne, and far safer and more peaceful than the rest of the realm.”

“Safer?” Rhaella’s mouth twisted. “Blackfyre and his crooked brethren are a stone thrown away, in the Stepstones, expanding their might by the moon. The Narrow Sea is swarming with enemies of the Iron Throne. How am I even to get to Sunspear?”

“Through land,” was the cool reply. “And it’s precisely their closeness to the Stepstones and the Three Daughters that the Iron Throne needs their full support. Don’t be stubborn like my children, little Rhae. Duty does not have to be a bitter fruit to swallow. The Martells are gracious hosts and even kinder to their own.”

Would it truly make a difference?

Perhaps… it wasn’t so bad. It was nothing more than duty, after all, and Rhaella already felt too selfish for her deeds.

Yet the prickling feeling in her neck only grew sharper, the premonition of danger thickened by the day. Rhaella felt like she was walking on pins and needles and often awoke in cold sweat.

Today, she knelt in prayer before the weirwood, now no longer a branch cutting but a tree over six feet tall. It was still young and thin. The bones of countless doves and ravens were buried at its roots, yet its growth had slowed down to a crawl, no different from a normal tree. The Andals and septons of old had said that weirwoods were demonic trees, feeding on blood, and there was a grain of truth to it. Blood indeed made this weirwood grow faster, but it had slowed down to the normal growth of trees. Perhaps birds were no longer enough.

No gods answered her prayers—not that she expected them to. Whitedream remained eerily silent, too.

‘Master, oh master. I’ve trained as hard as you wanted and then some, but I can’t see the road forward anymore. When shall you awaken?’

For a long moment, she contemplated using her dagger and carving a face into the bark, turning this into a true heart tree. But the thought was swiftly dismissed. The trunk was thinner than her thigh, her carving skills non-existent, and she did not know if there were any intricacies and rituals involved in the making of a heart tree. Perhaps soon she would no longer be able to visit this tree at all, making all of those plans no better than dust in the wind.

Contrary to her expectations, her grandfather had not raised any objections to the weirwood planting. Perhaps it was her grandmother’s doing, but even the septons did not seem to care. Few visited the godswood, and even fewer delved deeper. Perhaps the Faith had yet to find out.

Rhaella rose, gathering her skirts.

“What do you think of Dorne, Ser Gerold?”

The white cloak shuffled behind her with unease, his armour clanking softly. 

“A hot hell, princess,” was the clipped reply. “I much prefer the Reach. Or a sept.”

She stifled a snort and allowed her feet to lead her through the grove. The scent of wet earth and pine and oak tickled at her nose as she wandered restlessly. Her mind kept turning to the future. Summerhal.

In another life, her grandfather would have already made plans, inviting many friends, lords, and distant kinsmen to Summerhal, ready to hatch the dragon eggs. Rhaella had flown through raven wings, listening on the window ledges for any word of it, but there had been no talk of it, not even a whisper. Not even a single mention of Summerhal, safe for Uncle Duncan’s month-long stay there. 

Her grandfather had yet to give up on the plan to hatch dragons, but it no longer seemed to involve Summerhal… and that frightened her. She was as blind as any other to the future, now. With her marriage averted, her destiny broken, everything was… now a new, novel future, but not necessarily for the better.

Then, there was the schemer, plotting in the dark and killing people. Blackfyre and the Band of the Nine seemed to be acting with far more boldness and success this time. Then, there was the death of Ser Addam Rosby. The man was no Baelor the Blessed, but Rhaella could not say what exactly had happened with the death of Emmon Frey.

Finally, there was the death of the whores, taken as normal. Perhaps it was normal, but it galled her just the same. Her thoughts drifted to the mysterious new draught, the Touch of Pleasure. A slow poison?

“Why not put a sales ban on such a dangerous draught?” Rhaella had asked her father.

The reply was expected but no less disappointing.

“Dangerous?” Her father had let out a low, wheezing laughter. “Many things you can buy on a roadside stall in this very city are no less dangerous. Booze. Essence of sweetsleep. Aconite, hemlock, or even any sword or dagger. The crown is not there to baby its subjects. The merchants pay a hefty potion tax on the Touch of Pleasure, no matter how distasteful, more than twice as much as they do on wine and ale.”

Perhaps the princess wouldn’t care for the deaths of a few—countless souls were born and perished each day—but she had caught a glimpse of a body through the raven’s eyes one day, as the grave-diggers toiled slowly with their crooked spades over a shallow hole. It was a scantily clad whore, with sallow skin, eyes gone murky yellow… and she had been no more than a year older than Rhaella, perhaps less. The sight of it lingered in her mind to this day.

A similar view had greeted her three more times at the graveyard that week, and perhaps she would have seen even more if she had flown past it again. 

Touch of Pleasure.

She struggled to comprehend the purpose of this vile draught. She had sent Branda to investigate, and the deeper she dug, the more terrified she grew.

“First flask is for free,” the Stark maiden reported, face dark. “Though only for the gentler sex. The second and third ones are given at half price. Many womenfolk flock to it, especially prostitutes and courtesans. And then, those who drink three can rarely last a week without a sip. The first day, their throats feel as dry as parchment. The second day, their eyes redden, and their fingers grow shaky. By then, they are willing to squander all of their coin just for a drop of the stuff.”

“Like poppy wine?”

“Far worse.”

“Find me who makes the stuff.” 

Weeks later, Branda had yet to bring her a name. The Touch of Pleasure had appeared in Pentos and Braavos too, yet her handmaiden had yet to find the real suppliers, let alone their source or maker. Grandmaester Pycelle was handed a small portion, but he swiftly dismissed it as some ‘half-poison hedge-potion not worth his time’. 

Rhaella let out a long, weary sigh. Perhaps she need not care for such things soon enough. Just like her uncle and father cared not for the lives of common whores as long as it brought the crown more coin.

An hour later, Branda and a gloomy Joanna found her in the godswood, the golden-haired maiden looking as if her favourite kitten had died.

“Ana?” Rhaella gently prodded.

“Don’t mind her,” Branda smirked, amusement tugging at her lips. “Our young lion is about to be a father!”

Joanna merely sniffled.

“I thought his Frey wife was sent away long ago?”

Branda nodded eagerly. “Aye, it’s been six… no, nearly seven months, from what I gathered. But it seems one poke with the golden sword did the deed well enough, and the gilded weasel wife is heavy with a child—or so Genna says.”

Gerold Hightower let out something between a cough and a snort of laughter.

“Seven months is no small time,” Branda continued with a delighted grin. “Perhaps someone has given horns to our young lion lordling.”

“I doubt it. When poor Perriane departed for the Rock, she was accompanied by two septa to keep her company at all times, including at night.”

Branda’s grin widened. “Tsk tsk. Few lords would be so openly distrustful of their newlywed wife. It can be taken as an insult to House Frey.”

And it was definitely meant as one.

“Everyone is being so terrible to cousin,” Joanna muttered, her mouth quivering. “He didn’t do anything to deserve this.”

“It’s just duty,” the Stark maiden said with a lazy shrug. “And it’s that prickly pride your cousin has developed that makes it so entertaining to prod at him.”

“Don’t prod the lion too hard or it will bite,” Rhaella spoke quietly. Perhaps with Genna for a wife, the two friends would no longer drift away.

Brand tittered. “Bite? House Lannister is all roar and no bite.” 

“The Lord of Lannister is a Toothless Lion, yes,” the princess inclined her head. “None could ever claim otherwise. The Lords of the Rock are at their weakest since Queen Lorea of the Rock, yet weakness rarely lasts forever. As toothless as Tytos Lannister is, he has fathered four fierce sons. Once they grow…”

Rhaella began to hum quietly. 

And who are you, the proud lord said, 

that I must bow so low?

Only a cat of a different coat, 

that’s all the truth I know…

Joanna lifted her gaze almost immediately, her jade green eyes glimmering with interest. “I haven’t heard this one before.”

“Just a tune I heard long ago,” the princess said with a sad sigh. “It doesn’t matter.” Not yet. 

Tarbeck and Reyne still lived, as did their ambition, thinking themselves powerful as the Laughing Lion squandered the prestige and good name of House Lannister by the day. Not for long.

“Perhaps you have the right of it,” Branda relented, brows furrowed in thought. “Genna is to be queen, and that alone is no small thing.”

Surely enough, they later found Tywin passed out drunk by the kitchens, dragged over Steffon’s shoulders back to his quarters, while the Freys were toasting everyone they passed by in the Red Keep. 

Her eyes fluttered open, and she gasped. The moon was a dark hole in the starry sky above, gloomy and sinister and eerie. The air itself was choked with tension, as if it would ignite at the slightest spark. The world went on and on, twisted and rippling as if the rapids of the Dream were churning furiously.

She walked alone amidst the streets of King’s Landing, but they were empty, lifeless. All doors were barred closed, all windows and shutters nailed shut. Her feet trudged on and on, leading her through the familiar yet so foreign streets and alleyways.

A sense of desolation filled the air, and then she heard the clangour of steel and the battle cries of men. The whole city suddenly came alive, filled with the stench of smoke and blood and death. They came from the Lion’s Gate, a flood of crimson and gold, slaughtering their way through the faltering city watch.

Armoured brutes rammed through locked doors and shattered windows, murdering and pillaging and raping, and she stood there frozen, stunned as blood splattered all around her. Yet they all ignored her, not a single soldier or knight spared her a single glance.

The sack of King’s Landing.

Rhaella wanted to scream, but when her mouth opened, her throat refused to make a sound, the tension in the air solidifying into her lungs.

Why? Why are you showing me this now?

She blinked, and the flood of men turned into a horde of gilded fiends instead, fighting underneath banners of pure gold and purple snail. Another blink, and they now wore verdant green, their blood-splattered blazons marked with a golden rose. Another ripple, and they became rougher still, with a black storm at their back and horned stag and bull-like helmets. Next came the direwolf and the falcon through the Gate of the Gods and the Dragon Gates, the kraken and the sun-spear through the River Gate.

Each crashed through the city like an angry wave, sparing nothing and killing everything in sight. Sometimes, they were led by a two-headed titan, others by a pack of wolves and a pride of lions, by men with fish or eagle-shaped heads drowning the streets as the sea itself rose to flood the city, each sight more grotesque than the last. Sometimes, even by hairy giants, twice as tall as most men, leading brutes and wildlings clad in blood-soaked bone.

She lifted her head, helplessly glancing to the sky.

The moon had hidden, but the stars themselves began to fall, bleeding crimson across the darkness. And then, she heard a great and terrible voice tear through the eerie night.

“Pay the cost of greatness!”

Her head throbbed with pain as something cracked in the distance. Perhaps it was the sound of her own mind shattering. Her blood began to boil, burning through her flesh as she crumbled on the cobbled ground. The soldiers all roared and twisted, turning into demons, a twisted red-skinned caricature of men with pulsing bony protrusions across their stretched faces and hooves of darkness instead of legs.

Once the pain receded, gritting her teeth, Rhaella spread her raven wings, trying to fly away, but the sky pressed down on her, sending her tumbling to the ground. 

“Burn them. Burn them all!”

It was her brother’s voice this time, though not the one that came from the throat of young Aerys Targaryen, but an older, crueller version.

And then… the ground groaned like an angry beast as a rumble rippled throughout. The cobbled streets shook and pulsed, and then burst out with flames of green, searing through the demons. But the buildings and the stone itself began to melt, leaving only charred bones and ash behind…

And then, she heard a shriek, different from the demonic wails of pain. From the coiling smoke and ashes of ribbons fluttered free wings of crimson gold and purple…

Rhaella woke up with a gasp, swimming in cold sweat. Her mind ached, pounding against her very skull like a hammer. 

Branda Stark stirred from the covers with a wide yawn, stretching her arms. And then her grey eyes quickly widened. “Are you well, princess?”

“…Just a night terror.”

“Should I fetch for the Grand Maester?”

“No,” Rhaella rasped weakly. “A hot bath shall do.”

Half an hour later, she was bonelessly sprawled into a steaming tub, wishing she could melt inside.

The dream lingered in her mind for the rest of the day, all too vivid to be a nightmare. It had happened in the Green Dream, she was certain. An omen and quite terrifying one at that… but of what?

Nothing good, that much she was certain. Without Whitedream, it was hard to tell, and even he might not be of help. ‘Or might not be willing,’ she thought bitterly.

She almost missed the blissful days of ignorance, where everything was right in the world and all she had to do was mind her duty and courtesies. Almost.

Seven days remained until she left for Sunspear. Three days before her father’s nameday, her uncle Duncan hosted a horse race at the tourney grounds, emptying a good part of the Red Keep. Rhaella took the flask and sent off Branda to fetch Jarod and snuck into the Tower of the Hand.

“This is unwise, princess,” the white cloak said, voice dripping with irritation.

Gods, venturing into the city with Ser Gerold would be far safer… and yet Rhaella steeled herself. Every white cloak was not only the king’s sword, but the king’s eyes and ears too.

“Guard the door, ser.” 

Closing the parlour door, she swiftly ventured into the secret passageways and came out in a ramshackle hut by the docks, draped with a traveller’s cloak of thick, heavy linen.

Jarod Snow and Branda accompanied her, their faces cowled in black as they made their way through the churning streets of King’s Landing. The crowds in the streets had thinned; no doubt many had headed to watch today’s races.

The sky was dark and gloomy again today; no trace of blue or sunlight could be seen anywhere.

“Where are we going today?” Branda leaned in. 

“The alchemist guild.”

Branda’s steps faltered for a moment. “I… heard they don’t accept women, no matter how noble their birth.”

Rhaella chuckled. “Perhaps not for study and training—much like the maesters—but they are willing enough to talk and sell their wares and skills to the fairer sex, so long as the coin is paid.”

“Those legendary alchemists who were said to transmute metals?” Jarod Snow asked, voice low and full of hesitation.

“Yes,” said Rhaella. “But those skills were long lost. Although the alchemists often boast of their vast hoards of knowledge that can match the Citadel and prowess in mysterious potions, in these days, all they offer is the make of wildfire. There’s a good reason why there’s a maester in every castle and keep of import, but the Alchemist’s Guild only has their chapter here, in King’s Landing.”

And they had fallen out of grace with the death of Aerion Brightflame. It wasn’t the suppression of the Iron Throne—her grandsire had ignored their existence, deeming it beneath his notice, just like Maekar and Aerys I had. It was the lords of Gulltown and Duskendale who had levied a new guild tax, forcing the poor and dilapidated Alchemist chapters in those towns into closure.

The Alchemist Guildhall was an old, imposing building at the foot of Visenya’s Hill, hewn entirely out of black marble.

An old, plump man with a red nose and a wine-stained padded doublet of unassuming brown sat snoring in a chair in the antechamber. A weather-worn wooden cudgel hung on his belt, though it looked more like a gnarly branch picked up from some woodland than a proper weapon.

Jarod cleared his throat loudly, announcing their presence.

Groaning, the guardsman stirred from his seat, blinking blearily at them. 

“What’d you want?” he asked blearily, rubbing his eyes awake. His mouth was full of crooked, yellow teeth, and his breath stank of cheap ale. “We have no food or room here.”

“We’re here to see one of the wisdoms,” Rhaella rasped, forcing her throat to deepen her voice. “I have a query for him and perhaps a task.”

The guardsman’s face lit up, now fully awake. “Wisdom Rosart is free today,” he said eagerly, rubbing his hands. “Come, come.”

Wisdom Rosart. Rhaella knew of this man, though in her memory, he had been Grand Master. Perhaps he would still be one, but in two decades. In twenty years, Rossart was a man with great ambition, though bereft of cunning. He didn’t need much cunning to get close to Aerys the Mad, only promises of wildfire and a display of green flames that had so fascinated her brother after the Defiance of Duskendale.

He picked up a lantern that burned with a flickering green flame, cloaking the insides with a sickly emerald light. The bow-legged man hobbled, swaying through the dark, twisting hallways that were more like a maze with odd turns, going up and down. Bronze-bound doors could be seen occasionally, leading to rooms full of sand. “Below are the enchanted chambers where wildfire is made,” he explained, fanning his hand. “After centuries, everything is fully safe, I assure you. The last time there was a fire was during the Conciliator’s reign.”

Jarod Snow let out a loud snort. No living soul could be seen, and the guildhall felt like some old, abandoned crypt. And yet, she could feel the faint thrum of the stone beneath her feet. The pyromancers were underground.

The guardsman babbled on, speaking of how the alchemy spells had weakened greatly since the demise of dragons, weakening their guild greatly. As if someone would ever need a pale imitation of dragonflame when they had the real thing.

No dragonrider ever graced the Alchemist’s Guild with any attention, not even the eccentric Rogue Prince.

Before long, they finally halted at a varnished door, and the guardsman hesitantly reached out, grasping the knocker. 

“Wait a moment,” a muffled shout came through the door, accompanied by a booming sound. 

The door swung open, revealing roiling smoke that tasted like brimstone, and a thin, vulture-faced man emerged from it. His robes were a dull green that might have passed for emerald long ago, burned edges draping down all the way to the black floor. 

The guardsman’s free hand motioned their way. “They’re here for business.”

“Come in, come in,” Rosart beamed, urging them inside. “Don’t mind the smoke.”

He disappeared inside the veil, and something scraped against the stone, and the smoke swirled, slowly at first, and then it sped up until it grew thin, revealing a sprawling stone chamber with walls etched with glyphs and symbols Rhaella did not recognise. At the corner was a table hewn out of dark iron, cluttered with transparent glasses and vials. Empty, ceramic jars piled up in the corner like a small hill. The walls were lined with wooden rafters, groaning under the weight of jars of turbid liquids and exotic powders.

He sat on a wooden chair painted with dancing green flames and clasped his hands, his beady eyes studying their cloaked figures. 

“So how might I serve my distinguished… guests?”

The pyromancer’s unrelenting stare unnerved her greatly.

Rhaella shifted her weight, her hand shuffling beneath her robes until fingers found the dagger’s hilt on her belt. “I wish to inquire if someone has ordered large batches of wildfire as of late.”

“I wish to help you, but alas…” Rosart spread out his bony hands with a helpless expression. “The guild forbids disclosure of transactions.”

“Then can I peruse through your library?” she asked. “I can reward you handsomely.”

His face hardened. “I’m afraid the library is only available to the Wisdoms of the order.”

Much like the Citadel, then. The maesters guarded their secrets jealously, and the alchemists were no lesser.

“Then, can I study here as an acolyte?” 

“Alas, we do not accept maidens into our hallowed ranks,” he said with no remorse. “While some narrow-minded fools would claim a woman’s place is in the house, cooking and birthing children, our considerations are slightly different. Women tend to be distracting, and when working with the substance, even the slightest distraction can be… fatal.”

Rhaella expected the refusal, but the pang of disappointment came regardless.

“Then… can I purchase a flask of wildfire?”

“A flask will cost you twenty dragons,” was the swift reply. “And it shall be ready in a month.”

“Twenty dragons?” Jarod Snow bit back, voice harsh. “I can buy a suit of plate and a warhorse for less. And they’d be ready faster.”

Wisdom Rosart only let out a harsh bark of laughter.

“Then go buy your steel, good man.” His hunched shoulders straightened as the man proudly raised his head. “Wildfire is no ordinary iron to be available for purchase at every common smithy or to be hammered into being in an hour or two. It takes spells and time to brew the substance, and no ordinary flask can hold it. The substance can infuse most metals and stone and glass, soaking into their very fabric within weeks, sometimes days, turning them poisonous to the touch. Flesh—even tanned and cured—will hold the substance for mere minutes before it seeps in.” 

Rhaella raised her hand, and Jarod bit back his response. She was interested in wildfire, yes, but not to the point of forking out a good portion of her meager savings. And a month… she knew better. She had a memory of this very same Rosart, boasting that he could make large batches of the substance in less than three days with sufficient coin. Perhaps it was slower without royal patronage, but not ten times slower. 

And to make her wait a whole month… someone had ordered wildfire in great amounts. Was her grandfather making a move again?

The knot in her belly tightened.

“I have one last query,” she said slowly. Her hand plucked the flask from her belt and tossed it. Rosart’s bony hands caught it with surprising dexterity. “Can you tell me what this contains?”

He carefully weighed the flask in his palm, then gently shook it. His finger tapped onto the bottom before he lifted it before his eyes, studying the leather mesh with scary intensity. “It will cost you.”

Rhaella fished out ten silver stags from her pouch and slapped them on the table.

“Double it,” Rosart said. “It’s no simple draught, I can tell.”

After hesitating for a long moment, Rhaella took out the coin.

The pyromancer gave a slow nod and cautiously pulled out the cork, bringing the flask’s mouth underneath his nose and giving it a careful sniff.

He jerked away, face sour. Then, he carefully poured the dark, purplish liquid into a small bronze cup. Dipping a finger inside, he cautiously ran it through his tongue and spat it out.

“Nightshade from Qarth,” he murmured, again spitting on the ground. “But only a slight pinch, thickened poppy wine. Plenty of apple and grape extract. Some sort of… bittersweet mind-numbing herb, probably from the Basilisk Isles. Or the Summer Islands. At least two…no, three things I do not recognise, but one of them is some sort of shroom, for certain. It definitely heightens the body’s senses, but at the expense of the mind. Who did you get to cook up this mess of a mind-rotting draught?”

“A vendor by the Street of Silk,” Rhaella said. “Touch of Pleasure, they call it, selling it to whores.”

Rosart mumbled something underneath his nose. 

“Apologies,” he said with an abashed smile. “You must be one of the madames, right?”

Rhaella blinked. Madame? Did he mistake her for a brothel owner?

“Think what you will.”

“I get it.” Rosart nodded, puffing up his chest. “You can give it to the girls… but no more than once every ten days. Dilute one part draught with two parts water and two parts wine. Any more often will quickly rot the mind.”

Brenda’s chest shook, doubtlessly trying to stifle her own giggles.

“Thank you, Wisdom Rosart,” the princess said darkly. “We shall take our leave now.”

Rhaella fished out another silver coin, tossed it at the table, and left. As the door closed behind them, she could hear Rosart muttering about ‘mixing it up with the substance’.

Once back under the gloomy skies outside, Jarod Snow outright started snickering, while Brenda turned to her with a serious face. “We can purchase a brothel, too,” she said with a wide grin. “The hearsay there is thicker, spicier, and there’s a saying in the North—a naked man has few secrets, and a woman’s embrace loosens even the most stubborn of tongues.”

“No need,” said Rhaella, voice flat.

The visit to the Alchemist Guild raised more questions than answers. Neither nightshade nor poppy wine nor the rest of the things Rosart had named were any good, and combined…

Mind-rotting draught. Who would ever make such a thing and use it to target whores and women, of all people?

The next day, she went to her uncle with her findings, but he waved her away. “I’ll look into this later,” he said absentmindedly. “Now’s not a good time, niece. Find me after the tourney.”

“But Uncle, this is dangerous. At least the ledgers must contain who pays the tax on which goods, and the nightshade is rare—” 

Duncan raised his hand, face growing tight. “Patience. The master of laws does not need his niece of three and ten to do his work for him. Why don’t you go with Jenny for a walk through the godswood to calm your mind?”

Rhaella knew a dismissal when she heard one.

Her sleep grew ever more fretful, and with each weary dawn, the idea of going to Sunspear, away from this tangled mess of a city and the woes of the royal family, grew on her. Perhaps she wouldn’t feel so powerless there, nor half as stifled.

The first day of the tourney arrived, and with it came a terrible downpour from the Narrow Sea, drowning the city and the tourney ground in mud.

But her grandsire was not one to be dissuaded by some rain, and the games began regardless. 

Rhaella, on the other hand, had no desire to spend the day cold with garments soaked. Instead, she excused herself, claiming she felt weary from her moonblood and made her way to the library. 

Melony was behind a desk, hunched over an old tome with fragile, yellowed pages. Surrounding her was a pile of old, leather-bound books.

Her whole attention was set on her task, and she did not notice Rhaella sitting across her. The princess glanced at the opened tome, finding the pages filled with High Valyrian, words inked down with thick, sharp strokes and accompanied by the occasional glyph. 

The princess cleared her throat loudly. “So this is where you’ve been hiding as of late.”

Her lady flinched and stood frozen for a heartbeat.

“Princess,” Melony said, bright eyes glimmering with triumph. “I did not expect to find you here.”

Rhaella’s lips curved. “I did not expect to find you lost amidst a pile of books, yet here we are. Dragonlore?” 

She had glimpsed through some of the surviving books on the matter, but her young mind swiftly lost interest when faced with the string of mind-boggling words.

“One of the few precious tomes that survived Baelor the Befuddled.” The Lyseni maiden let out a long sigh. “This one hails from Dragonstone, hidden away by the maester who couldn’t bring himself to destroy knowledge. Baelor… they call him the Great, but once you glimpse beneath the measter’s writings, no great man is quick to burn books. In truth, he’s just a misguided fool, both in his faith and deeds.”

“The line between greatness, madness, and stupidity is rather thin,” Rhaella mused. The House of The Dragon would not be seen speaking ill of their ancestors, but there was a reason why no sons were named Baelor after his reign.

Melony hummed, her slender hands gently closing the tome shut. “I think I’m finally done. How might I be of service?”

“So you’ve had your fill?”

A triumphant smile tugged at Melony’s lips. “One can rarely have one’s fill of knowledge and wisdom. But in this… I’ve glimpsed more than enough.”

“Truly?” Rhaella quirked a brow. “Countless wise men and more than one king have toiled over these scattered collections of scrolls, hoping to usher back dragons into the world. They all failed.”

Melony lifted her chin, her fair face filled with pride. “They were not me.”

Rhaella burst out in giggles, her body quaking with amusement, but the unflinching stony face of the Lyseni maiden made it halt. “You… you’re serious?”

“I’ve had a teacher who taught me a little bit of the Higher Mysteries,” she said softly, her fingers fiddling with her ruby bracelet. “And I only saw a glimpse here, just enough to satisfy my curiosity on the matter. Dragons are, after all, the great legacy of Valyria, and the reason the Freehold rose to greatness.”

They chattered for a while on lighter matters as they left, the acolyte in the library grumbling as he buckled under the weight of the books Melony had left for him to return. And yet… the Lyseni maiden was bursting with excitement, a stark contrast to her usual cool and detached demeanour. 

Something was off.

‘What makes you so happy, so eager, Melony?’ she wondered, but no matter how hard she tried to steer their talk, she failed to find any clues or elicit any response other than boundless enthusiasm.

When evening came, Melony again disappeared after excusing herself to the privy. That night, she failed to come to Rhaella’s quarters, even though it was her turn to be her bedmate.

Author’s Endnote… that was a tiring chapter to write. Literal pain (or numbness) in the wrist. I wanted to write more, but… that’s all I can for now.Starring Rosart ‘Women will only affect the speed of cooking wildfire’ the Wisdom.