The Silver Prophecy | House Of The Dragon

Chapter 9

Four years later, 111 AC

Winterfell

The walk into the Godswood was a quiet journey, the long path far memorised with its usual comforting carpet of snow kissing the hard cold ground, like a blanket of white enveloping the world.

The wide forest almost shielding Aelanna at each step she took nearing the sacred Weirwood tree, with the sound of the soft crunch of the snow under her feet. The trees around were heavy with snow on it's tips.

The Godwoods are centered around a single heart tree, where Aelanna saw ahead as she reached her destination upon catching sight of the huge tree with a face carved into the trunk. Weirwoods are deciduous trees with white bark with five-pointed, blood-red leaves and sap that tends to make the tree look like it's crying blood as the sap leaks from the carved face's eyes.

The choice to visit the religious place was because of the solitude that it provided. It is used for its tranquility and meditation for the religion of The Old Gods of the Forest, but Aelanna wasn't there to pray for the Old Gods or the New. She wasn't religious, but the area transmited the comfort that the girl desperately needed, that helped her continue the day with a much calmer mind.

The now ten-and-four young woman stood in front of the alluring tree. Her black furred cloak protected her from the icy weather, wearing her black dragon riding garments underneath it. The cold making her fingertips feel as if they were burning, even through the gloves. But that wasn't an issue, the girl grew up on this frost bitten temperature. It became her comfort, her home. Winterfell was her home.

Aelanna closed the small steps towards the old tree, letting the distance in between to be close enough to got down on her knees and to sit on her legs, not minding the snow sticking on her leather pants. The motherless girl stared at the face carved on the trunk with its red tears, and without shifting her eyes away she took off her left glove, resting it on her lap.

With care, she reached her arm and rested her hand on the white trunk beside the carved face. The Children of the Forest carved faces into the trees as part of their magic-and-nature-based religion, which is built around the Old Gods.

Moving her eyes up through the trunk and ending on the red leaves, Aelanna analised the small details the old tree possessed. Closing her eyes, she slowly breathed the air in her nose for a few seconds, then slowly breathed out through her mouth with a shaky breath, a single tear running down her left eye.

Her lips started to quiver, despite her best at trying not to break down. Her mind was showing her the beautiful image of her mother, with her long healthy silver hair and violet shiny eyes. All the moments spent together on this very same spot, all the laughs and the lessons.

It almost didn't feel like a year has gone by since Daella's passing. Her last birth was a very complicated and sensitive one, the labors going for hours with loud and painfull screams, resulting in a vast blood loss.

Lord Rhaegel Targaryen was born healthy and strong despite the procedures ocurring at the labor chambers, the babe had blessedly survived. The bundle had inherited the Stark brown hair, but in contrast he got the traditional Valyrian lilac eyes.

However, despite Daella surviving the rough labors she was bed ridden. Because of the blood loss her body became very fragile and weak, she didn't had any energy or motivation. She had given her all to deliever her son into the world, but it seemed that her strength was slowly fading away.

And then, five moons after Rhaegel's welcome into the world, the mother had succumbed into a permanent and dreamless sleep. She had gone to bed that night but her eyes did not great the morrow the next day, they were shut close, and her chest that once moved weakly up and down with painfull breathes, was now still.