Stormbringer, Daemon Targaryen.

Nineteen

NINETEEN —— INNOCENCE DIED SCREAMING (II)

106 AC, KING'S LANDING.

There's something in her chest that's not quite right and it's slowly decaying over days upon days. It doesn't fit— sits all wrong in a way she cannot identify. Like her name. Like her family. Foreign— it doesn't belong.

Or, maybe, she does not belong to her own life and body anymore.

Morrgian can't tell the difference anymore. And when she tries to peel the layers away, to identify the ill piece, all she can think of is Alicent and her growing stomach. By now— a few weeks after the day of her wedding— the Queen's stomach has grown into a bulge undeniable by any and all and the entire realm knows that the King of the Seven Kingdoms is expecting another child before the year is up.

Morrigan's hands shake, throat closing up at the thought and she feels like she might die from lack of oxygen.

She presses her eyelids closed so forcefully, they hurt, pressing her lips together in an attempt to clamp down on the nausea at the train of her thoughts.

She's not even sure anymore what makes her feel so sick— Alicent's future, her future or everything else.

Morrigan presses her hands over her mouth, convinced for a moment, she will heave again as she covers on the floor of the latrine in her new home— the chambers she shares with her husband on the edge of the Red Keep— before a sob tears free and her entire body temples uncontrollably.

What had she told Rhaenyra that night?

It's easy to spot, eventually. If you know the signs.

Morrigan heaves again, but nothing comes out anymore as she wraps her arms around herself, sobbing, tears leaking from her eyes and running down her face. She's shaking so much her knees feel like they're chafing raw on the floor, curling in on herself. She wants to scream. She wants to cry. She wants to die.